Ant Hill Wins a PRSA 2010 Phoenix Award

We don't like to brag, but.... we're very excited to let you know that Ant Hill was awarded a Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) 2010 Phoenix Award within the sector of Integrated Communications for our work with Mythic Paint. Judges loved the many strategic facets of the campaign which included a successful social media strategy encompassing the filming and release of 'How To' videos with HGTV's David Bromstad, the management of six successful retail appearances with David and for securing coverage in all the major national, design and parenting publications and trade books. A big thank you to Mythic for being our loyal client- we are so excited to share this award with you!

-Ant Hill

We've Moved!

Ant Hill is officially settled into our new space at the King Plow Arts Center! We absolutely love it here. The building, rich with history, was originally a plow factory but is now home to tenants representing commercial businesses and the performing arts. In 1990, the owners designed a plan to transform the factory into a building of work studios, artist spaces, galleries, and restaurants without taking away from the history and architecture.

Perks? Non other than a rooftop view of the Atlanta skyline.

The area (West Midtown), is full of wonderful restaurants and tons of reputable businesses which can make way for some great networking opportunities.

Check back with us to stay abreast of the latest developments with our clients!

The Atlanta Ballet Production Moulin Rouge® Can-Cans Positive Reviews!

We are thrilled to share the reviews of Atlanta Ballet's production of Moulin Rouge®- The Ballet. The two and half hour long performance was full of props to simulate the essence of Paris, the hand-dyed costumes were made with careful precision and attention to detail, and the dance numbers displayed the enormous amount of practice and athletic ability contributed by each performer. The production received great reviews from Creative Loafing, the Marietta Daily Journal, and Arts Critic ATL.

We had a great time working with those at Atlanta Ballet and Solomon Says and hope to be able to work with them in the future, they're all fabulous people.

Check the ballet's blog for coverage and tickets for the production running through October 31. http://www.moulinrougeballet.com/


Photo by Charlie McCullers courtesy of Atlanta Ballet.

Happy Birthday to Us!

Ant Hill Communications turns one year today! What a year it has been and how exciting it is to anticipate what the future holds. We truly appreciate each of our clients and the synergy in which we operate. We began, and still are a scrappy bunch who love to work hard and love the results that hard work brings even more.

Special thanks to Mythic Paint, Orchid Ceramics, TunerBoone, CREW, MAP International, the Atlanta Ballet, and C PORT for your support in our efforts!

Orchid Ceramics 'Floors' Visitors at the Achasta Ideal Living House!

Ansley from Ant Hill here giving my post-visit insights on the 2010 Ideal Living Home in Dahlonega, Georgia. It was GORGEOUS! That's all....kidding :) Really though, Johnna Barrett of Sustain House did an amazing job and has an impeccable design aesthetic and perspective. The house is on a luscious piece of land overlooking the golf course in the Achasta Golf Community. Each bedroom has it's own walk in closet and bathroom. The house is the perfect balance in regard to gender design preferences; it's not to feminine or masculine. The colors are based off of a natural color palette of warm browns and tans. I had a chance to speak with Johnna at the ribbon cutting. She elaborated on how she hand-picked each product and insisted they be eco-friendly which makes us so happy she used Orchid Ceramic tile throughout the entire home! Here she is pictured with Grace Fricks, President and CEO of Georgia Green Loans

















The house will be open to the public beginning tomorrow, Saturday, September 11. It's $5 dollars per car load and 80% of the proceeds go to charity. Check out the pictures below. It's hard to believe that the house was built and finished in four months!
Check out the rest of the pictures on Orchid's Facebook page.

Who Says It's Not Easy Being Green?

Maybe ten or fifteen years ago we would have sided with Kermit the Frog but today, there is such a huge market focused on all green everything. We can't even call it 'niche' anymore! It feels great to represent brands that not only produce great products but also recognize what a social responsibility it is to ensure their products sustain the Earth. One couple we love agrees and has in fact, built their business on promoting a green lifestyle.

Ron and Lisa Beres of Green Nest and authors of 'Just Green It!' provide their audience with simple tips to switch your lifestyle to a health focused and eco-friendly way of living. We're thrilled to add that BOTH of our clients, Mythic Paint and Orchid Ceramics were featured at their book launch in California. Here are a few pics...

Orchid Ceramics Signs on with Ant Hill Communications

We're excited to announce a new addition to the Ant Hill roster! Orchid Ceramics, a ceramic, accent, decorative and porcelain tile manufacturer based out of Tulsa, OK was established in July of 2002 by the Coronas Organization, a multinational business based out of Columbia, South America which boasts over 120 years of production.

Ant Hill is looking forward to developing a strategized new brand positioning and marketing campaign for Orchid. There are tons of gorgeous styles of tile to choose from plus the fact that the products are GREENGUARD certified doesn't hurt either! We really value Orchid's commitment to the green movement and the philanthropic work they do with Tile Partners for Humanity and Habitat for Humanity.

Ant Hill Communications Creates YouTube Page for Mythic Paint

With the latest videos we've been shooting with David Bromstad and Mythic Paint, Ant Hill thought it would be nice for Mythic fans to get a glimpse of what goes on on the other side of the lens. So enters the birth of the YouTube page. Constructing the page is the perfect way to keep Mythic Paint fans and followers up to date on the latest video material such as the how-to videos by David. In these videos, David covers everything from the simplicity of painting a flawless wall to the complexities and details that go into decorating a baby or kid's space. Plus, being able to comment on each video is totally interactive which is what the social media movement is all about right? Go for yourself and check it out here .

See What's on Tap at the Paint Bar

A new spin on the mundane task of selecting paint has arrived to pull you out of your routine! Paint bars are cropping up all over the country and becoming wildly popular with paint enthusiasts and do-it-yourself-ers (is that even a word?...). Mythic Paint colors serve as the backdrop for the new paint bar at the house + earth retail store in Austin, Texas. We're thrilled for Mythic! The bar is totally interactive and informational making the paint selection process a fun event rather than a burden. Look in your neck of the woods for a paint bar nearest you and belly up!

Myhtic Paint Gets ecofabulous!

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Ant Hill is pleased to have set up an opportunity for Mythic Paint to sponsor ecofabulous as they design the showhouse at the 2010 Dwell on Design show. ecofabulous, a one stop interactive shop for all things eco-friendly and fabulous will be designing the interior for the Reclaimed Space Showhouse in the 2010 Dwell on Design show in Los Angeles, California June 25-27 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This is the second year ecofabulous will be designing the house. Last year's 400 square foot space was constructed from 80-90% salvageable materials! The house features new and innovative pieces keeping the eye entertained with many breathtaking colors and the environment healthy with the eco-friendly products. Mythic colors will be used on the walls of this year's space and we're sure Zem Joaquin, ecofabulous' eco-expert and her team will outdo themselves!

Turn out the lights

Ant Hill Communications supports Earth Hour which, this year will be on Saturday March 27 at 8:30pm local time.

The annual global event organized by WWF is held on the last Saturday of March. Households and businesses are asked to do something quite simple—turn off lights for one hour in a call for action on climate change. The collective actions demonstrate what can be accomplished when working together to protect the planet for future generations. Earth Hour 2009 gained support from nearly one billion people in 4,100 cities in 87 countries and we are expecting to increase this number considerably this year.

In the U.S. where we are already feeling the impacts of climate change, Earth Hour sends a clear message that Americans care about this issue and want to turn the lights out on dirty air, dangerous dependency on foreign oil and costly climate change impacts, and make the switch to cleaner air, a strong economic future and a more secure nation.

Participation is easy. By flipping off your lights on March 27th at 8:30 p.m. local time you will be making the switch to a cleaner, more secure nation and prosperous America. View the toolkits, to find out what else you can do to get involved including leading the Earth Hour movement in your community.

Set Your Clock

On Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 8:30 p.m. local time, Earth Hour will once again cascade around the globe, from New Zealand to Hawaii

Sparking a Movement

Since its inception three years ago, Earth Hour’s non-partisan approach has captured the world’s imagination and became a global phenomenon. Nearly one billion people turned out for Earth Hour 2009 – involving 4,100 cities in 87 countries on seven continents.

Last year, 80 million Americans and 318 U.S. cities officially voted for action with their light switch, joining iconic landmarks from around the world that went dark for Earth Hour, including:

• Empire State Building
• Brooklyn Bridge
• Broadway Theater Marquees
• Las Vegas Strip
• United Nations Headquarters
• Golden Gate Bridge
• Seattle’s Space Needle
• Church of Latter-Day Saints Temple
• Gateway Arch in St. Louis
• Great Pyramids of Giza
• Acropolis and Parthenon in Athens
• Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio de Janeiro
• St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City
• Big Ben and Houses of Parliament in London
• Elysee Palace and Eiffel Tower in Paris
• Beijing’s Birds Nest and Water Cube
• Symphony of Lights in Hong Kong
• Sydney’s Opera House

To show your support for this simple but effective demonstration of unity please click the link below:
https://www.myearthhour.org/home?invite=xHAEVdAPof

Glass Ceiling and Sticky Floor?

In the last 5 years, since CREW’s 2005 benchmark study, “Women in Commercial Real Estate”, women’s advancement to top positions (CEO, CFO, COO, board member) in commercial real estate had stagnated, or even regressed slightly. CREW’s new white paper, “Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor – The State of Women’s Advancement in Commercial Real Estate”, examines the reasons why and offers suggestions to reverse the progress. (http://www.crewnetwork.org/RESOURCES/WhitePaper_GlassCeiling_Dec09.pdf )

Some of the interesting observations found in the paper:

• Women leaders are perceived as competent or likeable, but rarely both.
• While recent female graduates entering the industry receive 89% of the compensation their male counterparts receive, as women approach age 35 and over receive only 75% of the compensation of their male counterparts..
• Both women and men were shown to perceive “taking care” behaviors as the defining qualities of women leaders, and “taking charge” behaviors as the defining qualities of men leaders.
• In Fortune 500 companies, those with the highest representation of women board directors and women corporate officers, on average, achieve higher financial performance than those with the lowest.
• Generally, women are perceived as working fewer hours than men. Studies also show that women are generally more productive than men while working.

New Paint Smell? - Quick Get Outside

Man has been decorating their homes for over 40,000 years. Early cave dwellers, probably those who were about to give birth and had a strong urge to nest, ground natural dyes into water and painted the walls with their fingers. Not a lot has changed on the nesting side, but the paint side is a whole different story.

Although we all know about the dangers of lead in paint, it is only recently that people have begun discussing VOCs and toxins and we all throw up our arms in terror of what might be hiding in the walls and air of our homes. But don’t panic. The cure for fear is knowledge and that’s exactly what we’re providing here. So sit back and relax and get ready for ‘everything you wanted to know about paint but didn’t know what to ask!”

So let’s start with VOCs – volatile organic compounds are a broad range of natural and synthetic products that evaporate at normal conditions and enter the air. We know for a fact that VOCs are greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming and so are restricted by the Government. However, what is less known is that VOCs are also instrumental in affecting the air quality of your home and have been linked to a variety of health problems. When you paint a room and smell that new paint smell, you are actually smelling the VOCs that are being off-gassed into your air. Although the smell goes away after a while, the off-gassing can occur for up to six years after application. In fact the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found concentrations of VOCs in indoor air commonly to be two to five times greater than in outdoor air, and during certain activities, such as painting, levels of VOCs may reach 1,000 times that of the outside air.

VOCs are measured as grams per liter on the side or bottom of paint containers. The average gallon of paint contains at least 150 grams of VOCs. Many of the large paint manufacturers now offer a choice of low VOC products, and several new companies have sprung up to meet the challenge of providing safe paints. But with these options comes a choice, and many people are learning that low VOC paints may not be low enough.

A low VOC paint is qualified as containing 50 grams of VOC per liter or less. But if you consider that a gallon of paint contains 3.8 liters then a low VOC paint still contains 150 grams of VOCs. That is equal to 30 nickels of VOCs in one low VOC gallon of paint. Tinting also adds VOCs to the paint, so it is smart to remember that the coloring process for most paints increases the VOC content along with the content of its toxins.

Thankfully though, we now have a wide variety of paint options that not only contain zero VOCs but also zero toxins, even when coloring. Milk paints have been on the market for years and provide coverage without the fumes – but are often not as durable as latex paints and can have application issues. Recent breakthroughs in polymer technology have created new products that offer greater durability and coverage than toxic paints, with zero VOCs, zero toxins and huge range of colors. Although more expensive than the toxic paints, they do offer the premium quality that we expect and need for our homes, but without all the fumes, toxins and VOCs that go with it.

The best advice for choosing a low VOC paint is to read the label and ask questions. If the paint can has a warning label on the side then it probably isn’t totally zero toxin or zero VOC. And when you choose your colors, ask your paint store if the tints contain VOCs. Many of the big box stores such as Lowes and Home Depot will offer lower VOC tints, but it always best to ask how many VOCs will be added when you mix your colors. More and more independent paint and hardware stores are offering high quality paints with zero VOC tints as a way to compete with the big box stores. And although their product is a little more expensive, many of them are educated about VOCs and toxins in paint and the best choices for your needs.

Ultimately, paint is a very low cost way to completely transform a room. It is worth putting in the research and perhaps a few extra dollars, to make sure that all you get is great color – and not all the VOCs and toxins.

David Bromstad and Mythic Paint

David Bromstad continues to be the perfect spokesperson for Mythic Paint. We started working with him in August of 2008 after he had won the first Design Star on HGTV and his own star was on the rise. It was a great match as Mythic had just launched and booth David and the paint were hitting the market with a brilliant offering, gorgeous packaging and an industry changing idea. :)

David hosts store events for Mythic where he talks about his own experiences, his thoughts on color theory and answers questions on what is new and fun in the world of design. For each event we leverage his activity by hosting competitions and pitching him to TV shows and local media.

Look out for a Mythic newsletter featuring David as well as some 'how to videos' which we are filming soon. But for now, here's an article from last Sunday's Chicago Tribune promoting David's visit to Colori.

What's it all about then?

How many blogs are there then? I mean really?

And I ask this in a totally hypothetical way because I have no desire to actually look into this question and provide a sensible answer. But I bet there are a gizillion. And do they all really have fabulous things to say? Well some of them do (the ones that I follow on this blog do at any rate). But this leads me to the real reason for my question. Do we really need another blog? And when confronted with the resounding 'no', then why am I starting one?

Well in truth, I wanted to start a blog for Ant Hill Communications to really do what we do all the time. I really want to talk about my clients. Mythic Paint, CREW Atlanta and SkyDesign. I want you to learn about them, and try them and ultimately fall in love with them (as I know that you will do). But you're not going to do that just because I want you to. You need an incentive. Something that's in it for you eh? So, I'm going to write about fun things. Interesting, informative and even (if I can manage it) things that are a little smart. So that you will come back and read on. And in doing so learn about our clients. For after all, isn't that what great PR is all about?