Of all the exciting ideas our Agency considered to celebrate this Thanksgiving season, I thought one especially merited sharing with you.

Nichole, daughter of colleague Randy Crow from Muskegon, Michigan, is serving in the Air Force in Afghanistan. She told her dad how much she loved getting all the “care” packages he sends her on a regular basis, and remarked that several of the soldiers in her company don’t get any mail from home. So Randy and his team have been “adopting” many of their daughter’s friends and sending packages to these “kids.”

After hearing Randy’s story, a number of friends immediately offered to help, and the ball was rolling. Randy had his daughter create a list of some of her friends that could really use some kind of communication from home, and we at Romanelli Communications have adopted Scott Mayes.  (more…)

2BeerGuys.com:
SaranacBlogger Dinner -
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

KosherBeers:
Maple Porter Review

TheBrewAuthority:
Blogger Dinner Podcast
12 Beers of Winter Review

ImaSoFat: YouTube Shorts of the Saranac Blogger Dinner
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

This past October we worked with the F.X. Matt Brewing Company (makers of Saranac) on a new approach to a product launch. Instead of a traditional PR blitz, we wanted to give bloggers who are passionate about craft beer the chance to taste Saranac’s 12 Beers of Winter as well as treat them to a gourmet meal and private brewery tour.  After all, most of us rely on word of mouth and peer reviews as a major factor when making purchasing decisions, so by reaching out to top craft beer bloggers, we hoped that they would spread the word about the new products using Social Media channels rather than traditional media publications.

Bloggers were selected based on their engagement, quality of content, and location. A great deal of attention was also paid toward bloggers who represented a niche (Kosher Beers, for example) as well as those who used a variety of social platforms to distribute their message (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc). The bloggers that were chosen weren’t under any obligation to write favorably about their experience. We knew that Saranac brews great beer and that the evening would provide some great content and exclusive access that their readers would enjoy.
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This past weekend we went down to NYC for the 40th Annual NYC Marathon. This is the third year in a row we went. I say we, as I’m talking about myself and my girlfriend, Anita. She is the runner. I am the spectator. It’s debatable who enjoys the marathon more.

This is Anita’s 18th marathon – no, that’s not a typo. If you had to define her in one word, it would be “runner.” She has run some of the toughest marathons in the world (including Boston 3 times), and runs them very well, breaking 3 hours on several occasions. I’ve had the honor of being with her for 4 of those marathons and I’ve always enjoyed being on the sidelines, watching her progress. This is the first year I was able to share the experience through the web. Below is my tweet-by-tweet commentary of this world event. (more…)