An advertising agency’s primary commodity is its ability to produce first class creative which is then sold on to clients, so when that creative is reproduced by another agency, it’s not only theft of intellectual property, it’s downright embarrassing for those who happily stole it.

From brainstorming and conception through to presenting, one campaign can take a whole team of dedicated people anything from one day to several months to bring together, and therefore costs the agency money.

Salefest passed a milestone last week after producing our 100,000th ad for print production in our 16 years as an agency. This great feat has been achieved by an innovative and committed team who have produced creative that has personality, is understood and more importantly, gets noticed.

Add to that the mountain of direct marketing campaigns, e-marketing, radio and television ads and press concepts we present each week to new and existing clients and it’s clear that ideas are our business.

As any conscientious agency should do, we like to keep an eye on competition and assess the market by listening to the radio, watching television and checking the press, and lo and behold within the last year we have come across 61 of our ad campaigns replicated in various formats around the country!

Some of these creative concepts were developed for prospective clients who then passed them on to other agencies for reproduction, which is mildly flattering for Salefest, but quite simply embarrassing for the agency that compromised their ethics and pride to accept such a commission.

In every case, copyright automatically belongs to the creator of the work, and agency clients or prospective clients, are merely granted an implied license to use the creative and materials produced by us for the purpose that they were created, and provided the service is paid for.

A client has no legal entitlement to neither alter material nor instruct another agency to do so without the permission of those who own the work.

We have been approached many times by clients to copy someone else’s creative and we have always refused for two standout reasons: firstly we have enormous respect for our craft and those who aspire to excel in it; and secondly we inevitably come up with something far better for our client.

Agencies who replicate others’ work show their inability for creativity and innovation as well as their excellent skill for plagiarism and unethical practice - how proud they must be!

At Salefest we research our ideas, conduct legal compliance and spend much time producing the finished product to present a fresh and original idea; we have 100,000 reasons to be proud of that.

Having recently produced our 100,000th ad for print at Salefest, we thought we would dedicate this month’s staff profile to our creative team whose collective creativity has helped us reach this fantastic landmark.

Creative Director Charles Bayer and Internet Creative Director Richard Butcher head up a team of inspired and intuitive designers who have thrown their ideas into the arena and shaped them into some immensely memorable campaigns over the years.

Design Team Leader John Cassar is responsible for running the studio and making sure that his team of designers puts their stamp of perfection on each and every ad.

And e-Business designer James Wicking uses his multimedia background to keep our clients’ e-zines looking fresh and relevant.

It’s the creative team’s skill and passion that makes Salefest what it is today!

Auto dealers throughout Melbourne and Brisbane recently enjoyed a visit from the AADA representatives, Ela and Celeste, who came bearing gifts of Krispy Kreme donuts to share with colleagues at the dealerships.

Ela and Celeste talked with dealers about the upcoming AADA Convention and the excellent program of cutting-edge workshops, fabulous entertainment and world-class speakers, one of whom is Kevin Panozza.

Kevin is the founder of Salesforce, one of Australia’s most effective customer service companies which he started with just a handful of staff in the 1990s.

Tamara and fiance Piripi come from New Zealand, where they were living in Auckland for ten years prior to their move to Brisbane three years ago.

Having just come from a marketing role working in brand management, and prior to that working in advertising for five years, Tamara says it’s refreshing to now work for a company that thinks outside the box:

‘I like the fact that Salefest isn’t a traditional advertising agency and the business model is different to other agencies,’ said Tamara.

Her vision for her future with Salefest is to be the best that she can be and hopefully make everyone’s life a little easier, which is a winning formula in our books!

But Tamara’s warm personality and sparky humour derive from much more than a successful career; she and fiancé Piripi like to live life like it’s going out of fashion.

With touch rugby, volleyball and boot camp training just some of the sports they participate in regularly, they also love to indulge in the best of Queensland’s food and wine, of which there’s plenty to choose from.

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If you’re reading this e-news, there’s a good chance that you know what a blog is: if you don’t, then welcome to the internet, it’s a really nice place to be.

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A recent study by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) for the worst traffic in the United States put LA in the top five. In fact, the travel time index is 1.92 which means that a peak hour trip takes almost twice as long as it would in off-peak times.

What’s more, the average LA motorist spends 72 hours every year in traffic jams – that’s nearly two full working weeks spent staring at the car in front of you, checking your emails and keeping your road rage under control.

Ta dah! Bring on the all-singing, all-dancing number plate. California’s lawmakers are considering introducing a bill allowing the state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for vehicles.

For instance, when you’re on the move the e-Plate functions just like a normal number plate. Then when you pull up in traffic or at a stop light it automatically switches to a paid digital message after four seconds. And in an emergency, the e-Plate would be used to alert drivers to what’s ahead and provide specific information on how to avoid it.

Now you have to admit that’s a pretty cool concept that could easily become a very cost-effective out-of-home marketing strategy.

And I’m sure the state of California does too because it would help reduce their humongous budget deficit.

California here I come.