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crafting brand experiences
for the modern audience.
We are Fame Foundry.

See our work. Read the Fame Foundry magazine.

We love our clients.

Fame Foundry seeks out bold brands that wish to engage their public in sincere, evocative ways.


WorkWeb DesignSportsEvents

Platforms for racing in the 21st century.

Fame Foundry puts the racing experience in front of millions of fans, steering motorsports to the modern age.

“Fame Foundry created something never seen before, allowing members to interact in new ways and providing them a central location to call their own. It also provides more value to our sponsors than we have ever had before.”

—Ryan Newman

Technology on the track.

Providing more than just web software, our management systems enhance and reinforce a variety of services by different racing organizations which work to evolve the speed, efficiency, and safety measures, aiding their process from lab to checkered flag.

WorkWeb DesignRetail

Setting the pace across 44 states.

With over 1100 locations, thousands of products, and millions of transactions, Shoe Show creates a substantial retail footprint in shoe sales.

The sole of superior choice.

With over 1100 locations, thousands of products, and millions of transactions, Shoe Show creates a substantial retail footprint in shoe sales.

WorkWeb DesignRetail

The contemporary online pharmacy.

Medichest sets a new standard, bringing the boutique experience to the drug store.

Integrated & Automated Marketing System

All the extensive opportunities for public engagement are made easily definable and effortlessly automated.

Scheduled promotions, sales, and campaigns, all precisely targeted for specific demographics within the whole of the Medichest audience.

WorkWeb DesignSocial

Home Design & Decor Magazine offers readers superior content on designer home trends on any device.


  • By selectively curating the very best from their individual markets, each localized catalog comes to exhibit the trending, pertinent visual flavors specific to each region.


  • Beside the swaths of inspirational home photography spreads, Home Design & Decor provides exhaustive articles and advice by proven professionals in home design.


  • The art of home ingenuity always dances between the timeless and the experimental. The very best in these intersecting principles offer consistent sources of modern innovation.

WorkWeb DesignSocial

  • Post a need on behalf of yourself, a family member or your community group, whether you need volunteers or funds to support your cause.


  • Search by location, expertise and date, and connect with people in your very own community who need your time and talents.


  • Start your own Neighborhood or Group Page and create a virtual hub where you can connect and converse about the things that matter most to you.

December 2016
By Kimberly Barnes

Going the Distance: Four Ways to Build a Better Customer Loyalty Program for Your Brand

Loyalty programs are no longer a novelty. That means that yesterday’s strategies won’t work moving forward, so look for ways to rise above the noise, setting yourself apart from the cloying drone of countless other cookie-cutter programs.
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Going the Distance: Four Ways to Build a Better Customer Loyalty Program for Your Brand

article-thedistance-lg It’s easy enough for a customer to join your loyalty program, especially when you’re offering an incentive such as discounts. All your customer has to do is give out some basic information, and voila! They’re in the fold, a brand new loyalty member with your company. From there, it’s happily ever after. You offer the perks; they stand solidly by you, bringing you their continued business. Simple. Or is it? In reality, just how many of those customers are act ively participating in your loyalty program? Do you know? Sure, loyalty program memberships are on the rise according to market research company eMarketer, having jumped 25 percent in the space of just two years. However, that figure may be a bit misleading. The truth is that, while loyalty program sign-ups may be more numerous, active participation in such programs is actually in decline. At the time of the study, the average US household had memberships in 29 loyalty programs; yet consumers were only active in 12 of those. That’s just 41 percent. And even that meager figure represents a drop of 2 percentage points per year over each of the preceding four years, according to a study by loyalty-marketing research company COLLOQUY.

When discounts just aren’t enough

So what’s a brand to do? How can you make your loyalty program worth your customer’s while—as well as your own? After all, gaining a new loyalty member doesn’t mean much if your customer isn’t actively participating in your program. Consider this: Does your customer loyalty program offer members anything different from what your competitors are offering? Chances are your program includes discounts. That’s a given. And what customer doesn’t appreciate a good discount? But when every other company out there is providing this staple benefit in comparable amounts, it becomes less and less likely that customers will remain loyal to any one particular brand. Frankly, it’s all too easy for customers to get lost in a sea of loyalty member discounts. They’re everywhere. In fact, just under half of internet users perceive that all rewards programs are alike, according to a 2015 eMarketer survey. The key to success, then, is to differentiate your business from the crowd. If you can offer your customers something unique and valuable beyond the usual discount, chances are they’ll be more likely to stick with your brand. Here’s some inspiration from companies who get it.

Virgin: Reward more purchases with more benefits.

That’s not to say you need to get rid of discounts entirely. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Customers still love a good discount. The goal is to be creative in terms of the loyalty perks you offer. Take the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, for example. As part of its loyalty program, the airline allows members to earn miles and tier points. Members are inducted at the Club Red tier, from which they can move up to Club Silver and then Club Gold. Here, it’s not just a discount. It’s status. And people respond to feeling important, elite. Still, even where the rewards themselves are concerned, Virgin is motivating loyalty customers with some pretty attractive offers. At the Club Red tier, members earn flight miles and receive discounts on rental cars, airport parking, hotels and holiday flights. But as members rise in tiers, they get even more. At the Club Silver tier, members earn 50 percent more points on flights, access to expedited check-in, and priority standby seating. And once they reach the top, Club Gold members receive double miles, priority boarding and access to exclusive clubhouses where they can get a drink or a massage before their flight. Now that’s some serious incentive to keep coming back for more. Discounts are still part of the equation – but they are designed with innovation and personal value in mind, elevating them to more than just savings.

Amazon Prime: Pay upfront and become a VIP.

What if your customers only had to pay a one-time upfront fee to get a year’s worth of substantial benefits? It may not sound like the smartest business idea at first glance. But take a closer look. Amazon Prime users pay a nominal $99 a year to gain free, two-day shipping on millions of products with no minimum purchase. And that’s just one benefit of going Prime. It’s true that Amazon loses $1-2 billion a year on Prime. This comes as no surprise given the incredible value the program offers. But get this: Amazon makes up for its losses in markedly higher transaction frequency. Specifically, Prime members spend an average of $1,500 a year on Amazon.com, compared with $625 spent by non-Prime users, a ccording to a 2015 report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Patagonia: Cater to customer values.

Sometimes, the draw for consumers isn’t saving money or getting a great deal. The eco-friendly outdoor clothing company Patagonia figured this out back in 2011, when it partnered with eBay to launch its Common Threads Initiative: a program that allows customers to resell their used Patagonia clothing via the company’s website. Why is this program important to customers? And how does it benefit Patagonia? The company’s brand embraces environmental and social responsibility, so it was only fitting that they create a platform for essentially recycling old clothing rather than merely throwing it away. The Common Threads Initiative helps Patagonia build a memorable brand and fierce loyalty by offering its customers a cause that aligns with deep personal values. OK, so their customers get to make a little money, too. Everybody wins.

American Airlines: Gamify your loyalty program.

If you’re going to offer your customers a loyalty program, why not make it f un? After all, engagement is key to building a strong relationship with your customer. And what better way to achieve that goal than making a game of it. American Airlines had this very thing in mind when it created its AAdvantage Passport Challenge following its merger with USAirways. The goal: find a new way to engage customers as big changes were underway. Using a custom Facebook application, American Airlines created a virtual passport to increase brand awareness while offering members a chance to earn bonus points. Customers earned these rewards through a variety of game-like activities, from answering trivia questions to tracking travel through a personalized dashboard. In the end, participants earned more than 70 percent more stamps than expected – and the airline saw a ROI of more than 500 percent. The takeaway: people like games.

Stand out from the crowd.

Your approach to your customer loyalty program should align with your overall marketing approach. Effective branding is about standing out, not blending it. Being memorable is key. To this end, keep in mind that loyalty programs are no longer a novelty. That means that yesterday’s strategies won’t work moving forward, so look for ways to rise above the noise, setting yourself apart from the cloying drone of countless other cookie-cutter programs.


608 Getting attention in the age of distraction

How to make sure your ads are getting noticed and getting results.

775 Boost email open rates by 152 percent

Use your customers’ behavior to your advantage.

June 2016
By Jeremy Girard

Small Changes, Big Impact: 5 Things You Can (and Should!) Do Today to Boost Your Website’s Performance

There’s no time like the present to implement these quick fixes and reap the rewards for months to come.
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Small Changes, Big Impact: 5 Things You Can (and Should!) Do Today to Boost Your Website’s Performance

artice-smallchanges-lg Every spring it happens like clockwork: the temperatures get warmer, the days get longer and everything in nature becomes more vibrant and colorful. Along with these changes in the great outdoors comes the irresistible urge to clean house and embrace a fresh start. Why not keep that motivational momentum going and apply it to your business – and, more specifically, to your website – as well? After all, there’s no time like the present to sweep away the old and outdated and bring in fresh new ideas and technologies. But you don’t necessarily need to dive head-first into a full redesign and all of the time and expense that entails to reap measurable results. Instead, here are five small steps you can – and should! – take today to ensure that your site is up-to-date, relevant and doing all it can to bring you new customers and grow the community around your brand:

1. Reposition your contact form.

For most website owners – especially those in service-based businesses such as law, accounting, consulting, real estate, etc. – the key “win” for their site is when it motivates a visitor to request more information or schedule a meeting. Contact forms are a ubiquitous website staple intended to provide a convenient – and highly measurable – avenue to initiate communication between an interested prospect and a company. However, perhaps because they are so commonplace, all too often these forms are given little strategic thought, resulting in a cookie-cutter name/email address/phone number format that yields more bogus spam submissions than legitimate new business opportunities. However, there is one simple change you can make that has been shown to get better results: reposition your standard “Contact us” form as an “Ask our experts” feature. By doing so, you shift the focus of the form to providing your visitors with an opportunity to submit a question that is specific to their needs and concerns. Rather than feeling like they are opening themselves up to an endless barrage of solicitation calls and emails, your visitors will sense that they are initiating a dialogue with an expert who will help them solve their particular problem. Make sure to respond to all inquiries within 24 hours, provide helpful advice that is free of charge and tailored to your prospect’s situation, and leave the door open to continue the conversation in a future meeting or phone call. By doing so, you will establish an important foundation of trust and confidence with your potential new client that will make them more inclined to engage your professional services. expert I have personally seen the submission rates on these types of forms increase dramatically. On one site where this small change was implemented, form submissions jumped from one or two per week to one or two per day – all legitimate business opportunities that were sparked simply by repositioning the focus of the form.

2. Productize your offering.

Another challenge that professional services organizations face in creating a website that works as an effective customer conversion engine is that they do not sell a specific product but rather a suite of services that can be customized to each client’s specific needs. This makes it terribly hard to market to visitors who come to their site and simply want to know “What exactly does this company sell, and how much does it cost?”. Because there are so many variables to the company’s offerings, there is not a quick and easy answer to these questions. If this challenge sounds familiar to you, one approach you can try is to “productize” what you have to offer. Create a bundle of services with a fixed price, and market that package on your site in a simple, straightforward manner that makes your offering easy to understand and helps visitors feel like doing business with your company is as simple as buying a product off the shelf at a store. package This is exactly what my company did with some of the technology consulting services that we offer. Instead of only listing the array of services we provide, we also created a product that representing a very specific offering. This made it so much easier to answer the “What do you sell?” question, and it gave us something tangible to promote in our marketing campaigns. In reality, this approach in no way limited the range of services we are able to offer our clients; rather, it merely served as a vehicle to open doors to new opportunities and made it easier to start conversations with new customers for whom we could ultimately provide a custom-tailored solution. Examine the services that you offer, and work with your marketing team to create an appealing package that you can market – understanding all the while that this “product” is really just a means for you to connect with customers and begin the sales process with something tangible that they can easily understand.

3. Lose your home page carousel.

One simple change that I have seen many websites make in the past year or so is to remove animated image carousels from their home pages. These carousels have long been a popular fixture of website design, but the reality is that they can sometimes do more harm than good. Home page carousels typically feature giant, screen-spanning images which carry with them heavy download requirements both for the images and for the scripts that power the animation sequences, thereby creating a potential stumbling block in performance for users on mobile devices or with slower connections. Additionally, studies have shown that click-through rates on animated carousels are extremely low, and they drop significantly from the first slide to the subsequent ones. This is why many companies are replacing rotating carousels with a singular static message instead. This one change can greatly reduce a page’s download size (when my company did this on our home page, its file size decreased by 75 percent) while having little to no effect on actual user engagement or click-through. In fact, because the page now loads more quickly, many sites actually see an uptick in user engagement because fewer people are abandoning a site due to poor performance. image Do you have a carousel on your website? If so, do you know whether or not it is working well for you? Your marketing team may be able to do some A/B testing between a version of your site with this animation feature and one without it to see which performs better. Since carousels do work well for some sites (like news organizations or sites with lots of frequently updated content), having this data can help you determine whether or not it’s time to ditch the carousel.

4. Update your image(s).

Stock photography is something of a necessary evil of website design, as more often than not, companies don’t have the budget to execute a full-fledged custom professional photo shoot. However, not all stock images are created equal. Stock photos that are overused or that look so obviously staged that they scream of their “stockiness” can cheapen a site’s design and leave visitors with a negative overall impression of the site. Replacing those images can make a big difference in a site’s visual appeal. If your site’s imagery is stale, you can make some simple image swaps to freshen it up. If you are going to change out old stock images for new stock images, make sure to seek out photos that feel fresh and that are not terribly overused (most stock photo sites will tell you how many times an image has been downloaded). An even better option is to try to add some unique imagery to your site. This could be photographs that you hire a professional to take or – in keeping with one of this year’s hottest trends – custom illustrations that you commission from an artist. illustration If your budget is tight, incorporating even just one or two such one-of-a-kind images in key spots on your site can really boost its visual impact. For instance, if you lose that aforementioned carousel on the home page and replace it with one truly compelling static image and message, it can make a really powerful first impression on your visitors.

5. Publish less.

Most experts agree that publishing original, value-add content on your site on a regular basis is key to optimizing its success – both from a sales and marketing standpoint and as an advantage in the never-ending battle of SEO. While I agree with this approach in principal, for many companies, the drive to publish regularly has resulted in putting out mediocre content simply to meet an inflexible standard of frequency. This is often an entirely counterproductive effort, as content that lacks in quality, original thought or value for the reader reflects poorly on the organization and its perceived level of expertise. Publishing original content to your site on a regular basis is still a best practice, but that content must offer value for it to succeed. Let’s say a visitor comes to your site and is impressed to find that you publish new articles weekly or monthly; however, once they click through the headline to see what they can glean from your writing, if what they find is mediocre at best, what motivation do they have to return to your site again in the future, let alone entrust you with their hard-earned dollars? If, on the other hand, you publish new content less frequently, but everything you produce is of the highest quality, then that same visitor will know that the time they spend on your site will always be worth their while, and they will look forward to the next time you post something new. Re-examine your current content marketing strategy, and ask yourself whether you are focused on quality or frequency. If it’s the latter, commit instead to writing less but to improving the quality of what you offer on your site. While this change may not have an immediate impact, it will absolutely yield long-term results that your visitors will appreciate and respond positively to.

In closing

Eventually, your website will need a redesign, but in the meantime you can make small, strategic, surgical changes that will pay immediate dividends in your site’s success. This approach of implementing gradual but regular modifications will also benefit you when it does come time for that full redesign. By making intelligent improvements over time, you will ultimately be closer to your end goal, leaving less to accomplish with the redesign and thereby paving the way for a smoother and less costly project.
March 2020
Noted By Joe Bauldoff

How to Avoid the Tech Hype Trap

Their reputation of being a reliable fount of good design philosophy preceding them, the IDEO team describes the importance of prioritizing human need over faddish tech, and how one should go to the shed looking for the right tool, rather than becoming the trendy hammer that sees everything as a nail.
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October 2013
By Blaine Howard

Tune in to Everything

The longer you write for the same brand or client, the deeper you can fall into a creative rut. Great writing requires an unrelenting pursuit of fresh voices and new perspectives.
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Tune in to Everything

tunein-article

The greatest foe a writer must face isn’t actually writer’s block; it’s a much more nefarious enemy: “rut syndrome.” Every brand has its own voice, and every project has its own tone. But after you’ve thrown a few thousand words at something, it gets harder and harder to write anything original while staying within these established parameters.

Familiar phrases start to reappear with increasing regularity, and you may find yourself unopposed to using them again. “Tried and true” becomes “tired and clichéd.” Buzzwords turn into buzzkill. The walls of your rut begin to close in on you, and you get the feeling that your best work might lie behind you, at least in this particular field.

So how can you claw your way out of this rut while staying in your groove? By looking outward rather than trying to dig deeper into yourself. And by “outward,” I don’t mean industry blogs or field-related resources. Sure it’s important to stay informed, but often the fresh perspective that fuels a new direction in your writing will come from unexpected directions. The key is to turn your attention toward those unlikely sources – and let the creativity flow.

Living on “high-receive”

One of the creative sparks for this very article has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of years now. It’s an off-the-cuff bit of writing that appeared on the Facebook page of Fame Foundry’s chief architect, Kenneth Vuncannon. The title alone speaks volumes about why I enjoy working with Ken: “On creative design (and in stern defense of all creative people)”.

In this piece, Ken wrote, “Not even designers know where all the inspiration comes from, but they are the ones who sacrifice normal life and choose to live constantly on high-receive, subjecting their brains to everything in this world in the name of creativity.”

That bit about high-receive struck me at the time, and it remains with me still, informing my work process day in and day out. And here I was just casually spending five minutes on Ken’s page, looking at pictures and catching up – probably drawn to his profile by some quip that made me laugh.

Ken’s brief paragraph in praise of designers – “they are the ones” who draw inspiration from “everything in this world” – also serves as a great piece of advice for anyone wishing to challenge their own creativity: look outside yourself. Look everywhere, all the time. Be ready for that happy coincidence. Train your mind to make connections that can grow into your next great work.

The more you think like this, the more your ideas will begin to flow from moments that might otherwise slip by as ephemeral instances of random beauty or humor. And the greater the chance that something original can find its way into one of those dry assignments that threatens to drag you down into the rut.

Here are a few examples from my own efforts to stay tuned in to the greatness around us:

Crazy people

Here’s a piece that has stuck with me for some 20 years. I was at my grandmother’s for the weekend with the rest of my family, home from college, sometime in the early nineties. Grandma Whipkey’s was a fine place to visit, overflowing as it was with homemade cookies and cable TV – HBO to be specific. We were flipping through channels when I stopped for a few minutes on something called “Crazy People,” a movie starring Dudley Moore and Paul Reiser as advertising pitch men.

I hadn’t heard of the movie and had no interest in the premise. But the part that happened to be showing was Dudley Moore’s pitch for Volvo. The tag? “Volvo: Boxy but good.”

As a college kid only just discovering the verbal agility and wit of Monty Python, this bit struck me as funny. All these years later, I think of this clip often. There’s a bit right after it as well where Moore argues that he and his fellow execs should “level with the people.” Reiser’s reply is, “We’re in advertising. We can’t do that.”

It’s a sharp piece of satirical writing – one that serves as a great reminder that marketers can – and should – tell the truth.

A reverent – and irreverent – obituary

Here’s an opening line that has never before been used in an obituary: "If you're about to throw away an old pair of pantyhose, stop."

You read that right. But such a goofy first line couldn’t possibly be part of a well-written obituary, could it? Surely this is a misguided attempt at humor that falls as flat as a vulgar joke in church.

Wrong. This one, written by the family of Mary Agnes Mullaney, a Milwaukee native who recently passed away at 85, hits it out of the park. There isn’t a hint of typical dry obit tone, but the piece overflows with joy, grief, dignity and every other emotion that naturally occurs when a well-loved person passes away.

Take this passage, which recounts lessons to live by, as demonstrated by Mary the gentle firecracker:

“Go to a nursing home and kiss everyone. When you learn someone's name, share their patron saint's story and their feast day, so they can celebrate. Invite new friends to Thanksgiving dinner. If they are from another country and you have trouble understanding them, learn to ‘listen with an accent.’

Never say mean things about anybody; they are ‘poor souls to pray for.’

Put picky-eating children in the box at the bottom of the laundry chute, tell them they are hungry lions in a cage, and feed them veggies through the slats.”

The purpose of an obituary is to announce someone’s death and convey a few carefully culled facts about the life that was lived. This piece turns the conventions of this medium upside-down and, in doing so, transforms it into something every obituary should be: a very human, deeply powerful ode to grief and celebration.

This one inspires me to look again at any dry or unwelcome writing task set before me. There is always a new and different way to approach any assignment, no matter how seemingly routine.

Kids run roughshod through ruts

If you want a prime example of setting your brain to “high-receive,” my sincere hope is that there are children in your life. My wife and I have four kids, ages two, five, seven and nine. I call them the Popcorn Gang – they’re packed with energy and exploding all over the place with creativity (among other things).

popcorn-gang

One of my favorite bedtime storytelling techniques is to turn them loose on a basic comic book plot and let them fill in the fun bits. They are the crusaders for justice, and they choose their powers. My main responsibility is voicing a made-up villain (Rovoltin’ Molten is a favorite; he controls lava and maintains a sinister lair deep in a volcano) and subjecting the baddie and his minions to my kids’ incredible feats of bravery and might. My evil mastermind will try to take over the world; this much is certain. But make no mistake, he will be utterly defeated by the end of the tale.

It’s always a big gulp from the fire hose of originality. If I didn’t set limits on the numbers of powers, talking animal sidekicks and tricked out vehicles, the stories would last until dawn. One example among hundreds: I’ve never heard of a superhero who shot blue popcorn from his knuckles before, but darned if young Captain Abel didn’t thwart a whole battalion of lava soldiers with this devastating ability. They’ve come up with enough plots and powers over the years to populate a whole new superuniverse.

My daughter Evangeline, our youngest, will be three in a couple months. The other day she had this revelation for my wife while they cuddled up and looked out the window at a gorgeous late summer day:

“Mommy, you are the flower and I am the green grass. Cole is the raincloud and Abel is the raincloud and Gibson is the raincloud and Daddy is the sun. Grandpa is the blue sky and Grandma is the green grass with me.”

So yeah, that’s unquestionably my favorite thing of the week. I was amused to note that her brothers are the rainclouds, while bursting with joy over my status as the sun (all the while realizing that I’ll undoubtedly take a turn as a raincloud in 10 years or so).

Later on, because I spend a lot of time each day in the marketing world, I thought about what a great moment it would make in a campaign. Not a cynical moment designed to manipulate emotions. Not a too-cute, overdone moment that feels like neon unicorns prancing on cotton candy clouds. But a light, authentic moment that could find a natural fit with any number of family-oriented brands. I may never wind up using it, but into the hopper it goes.

Kids are at the heart of so many memorable ads, from Volkswagen’s Darth Vader Kid to AT&T’s recent series of ad-libbed interviews. And it’s not hard to understand why: Kids don’t know from ruts. You want a fresh perspective on something? Run it by a human under 10.

Storing up genius

Staying open to unlikely sources of inspiration doesn’t always come naturally, but there’s no reason why creativity and structure can’t go hand in hand.

Keep a file of intriguing items you run across. Bookmark video clips, images or articles that strike your fancy. If you have kids, pets or friends who do things that make you shake your head for any number of reasons, by all means fill a notebook with their quotes and stories.

By the way, if you don’t end up using anything in some capacity (you will, but let’s say you don’t), there is still a tremendous benefit to be found in a life spent deliberately looking outward in pursuit of the good stuff. In the end, it’s not just about helping yourself create better work and serve your clients better. That is simply an inevitable benefit to the habit of tuning into greatness. But you can be sure that as you expand your horizons, your work will be distinguished not by its similarity to other campaigns or articles in the same field but by the part that stands out as original. Your fresh voice and your sideways angle are what will set your writing apart and keep your creativity flying high, safe from the depths of the dreaded rut syndrome.

So here’s to all those disparate bits of stimulation that will make your work better, stronger and more inventive. Stay tuned – to everything – and be inspired.