Part of Addison Whitney culture includes active support of philanthropic endeavors. Breast cancer is an illness that has affected all of us in some way, and we are part of a much larger initiative dedicated to finding a cure.

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we here at AW made donations to BCC Rally and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As a gift, in return for our donations, we each received a 7-inch hot pink ribbon to be displayed on our desks, cubes or doors. Excitingly, we collected enough money to receive 35 bows. They went up on Friday, October 1, the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

To coincide with day one, we encouraged everyone to wear pink to the office and help to Paint AW Pink. Friday was definitely a pink day as the bows glowed brightly throughout the office, and many of us showed off our pink shirts and dresses.



The bows stayed up through October, but we will always be part of the fight for a cure.

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Picture this. It’s been 69 days since the accident. TV viewers are waiting patiently to see the first rescued miner’s face. He reaches the surface. The rescue capsule is opened. Audiences worldwide look to see his expression and can’t escape the “O.”

If you’ve missed the story on the Chile Miners rescue, check out the details here. This story and the facts about the rescue are remarkable, but what’s really fascinating from a brander’s perspective is the opportunity that Oakley took to illustrated product placement at its finest.

After being underground for such an unimaginably long period of time, the miners needed protection from ultraviolet light when they reached the surface. Conveniently, a Chilean journalist recommended Oakley to the Chilean private health insurer, and the rest is history.

Oakley donated 35 pairs of sunglasses (listed for $180 each on Oakley’s website) to the Chile miners. As a result of their strategic generosity, CNBC reported that the company has received $41 million in equivalent advertising time through the news media coverage of the rescue… Talk about a return on investment.

Oakley has hit gold for their brand image. It’s a win-win. To consumers, the brand comes off as charitable for donating and dependable for being a brand that Chile officials trusted to fully protect the miners. For Oakley, the amount of exposure and revenue from this perfectly positioned helping hand effort will be immeasurable.

Contributed by: Ashley Hollingsworth

We’ve talked a lot about how brands are trying to add “Green” to their corporate color palette, sometimes with real, valuable initiatives and sometimes with just words. (Green: Who Can Claim It? and Greenwashing) So in honor of this Earth Day, the 40th Anniversary actually, we’d like put some of those brands to the test to “verdify” how green they really are.

Last month, SunChips introduced the world’s first fully-compostable chip bag. The new bags, made of plant-based materials, should fully decompose in 14 weeks (under typical hot composting conditions). A few weeks later, Snyder’s of Hanover announced it too would be using sustainable packaging (on its organic line of pretzels).

I don’t have a compost pile, much less the perfectly mixed 1-2-2-2-1 “hot” compost that SunChips recommends, but I do find the random scrap of trash in my yard after trash day. Would the bags eventually decompose in my yard or on the side of the road? We plan to find out.

For our Earth Day experiment, we have staked one of these composting bags to the ground to simulate errant trash. We will photograph our progress and share the results on the blog.

Working in an office environment is great. There is fresh brewed coffee in the break room, your calls get transferred directly to your desk, your mail gets sent out promptly by simply dropping it in the Outgoing box, and you always have fresh pens and notepads at your disposal. It’s like magic. These little cohesive consistencies are what can keep each day from completely going up in flames, when chaos has engulfed everything else.

But it’s not magic. Well, it’s not wand-waving, spell enchanting magic, but it’s definitely something special. And it doesn’t just materialize on it’s own. There are a lot of hardworking individuals who are behind these seemingly simple tasks. But there is nothing simple, or easy, about being an administrative assistant. They, for lack of a better expression, are the glue, well for fun, let’s call them the super glue, that keeps an office and an office environment efficient.

This year, Aprils 18th to April 24th marks the National Administrative Professionals Appreciation Week, with Administrative Professionals Day landing on April 21st. Though you should always appreciate the hard work of your colleagues, especially your admins, this week is especially set aside for you to outwardly express your admiration and gratitude towards them for what they do.

Formally known as Professional Secretaries Week, before America got all politically correct in 2000 and updated the name/title, this evolving holiday was first created back in 1952 through the work of Harry F. Klemfuss, a New York publicist. He wanted to encourage more people, especially women, to consider careers in the secretarial field.

Fast-forward half a century, through civil rights and the bra burning years, the role of secretary as well as the gender has changed drastically. Administrative professionals are no longer Aquanet wearing, note-taking women, but serious business professionals. In fact, some prominent executive administrators are some of the highest paid people in corporate America. And they aren’t all women. Can we say Mark from Ugly Betty?

But whatever role they play in your particular office environment, they are the smile that greets you at the door and the ‘Have a nice day!’, as you leave. They are your organizational outlook and your personal reminder. They make your job easier.

So show your appreciation this week for one of largest workplace observances in any way you can. Flowers, candies, gift cards, etc. … and who doesn’t like to be taken out to lunch?? I’m just saying …

How do you plan to thank your administrative professionals? Leave your thoughts below.

Contributed by: Keri Lynch