• Our Lips Are Sealed

    September 09, 2015

    • by Emily Foster, IHAF

    31 Categories. 664 Entries. 13 Judges. 93 Winners. And 1 Best of Show. The annual IHAF Awards Show is just around the bend which means every submission has been touched, watched, heard, poured over, and ultimately scored by our panel of experts. All that’s left to do now is announce the winners! …

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  • Awards Galore—And More!

    August 03, 2015

    • by Emily Foster, IHAF

    We’re halfway through summer and the IHAF team is plenty busy sorting through over 650 entries we received for this year’s IHAF Awards competition. It’s wonderful to see all the extraordinarily creative work produced by in-house teams from Detroit to Denmark, India to Idaho! We’ve certainly shared …

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  • Showing Off for Clients (and Mom & Dad)

    July 27, 2015

    If your in-house agency is anything like ours then you’re constantly asking yourself, “How do we gain recognition for what we do at our company?” We can conduct informational meetings and pass out all the team-branded swag we want, but at Team IDEA, the in-house creative services and events agency …

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  • What’s In A Name?

    July 20, 2015

    Consider yourself lucky if you work for an internal agency these days. Based on a 2013 report by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the penetration of in-house teams has grown from 42% to 58% in five years. And the trend continues. In fact, more and more companies are reaping the …

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  • Give Your Clients What They Want

    July 15, 2015

    • by Emily Foster, IHAF

    Does the title of this blog frighten you? Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell you to make the logo bigger or to infuse neon green into your corporate brand palette. Beyond hearing “yes” to the sometimes-random requests they make, do you know what clients really want? They want to know that the in- …

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  • The Early Bird Gets the Discount

    July 08, 2015

    • by IHAF Staff

    It’s the most wonderful time of the year…at IHAF, anyway! That’s because we’re in the midst of planning our biggest event of the year—the IHAF Annual Conference & AwardsShow. The IHAF program team is hard at work lining up the best speakers, the best breakout sessions, and most opportunities to …

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  • Stimulating Creativity

    July 06, 2015

    I was approached to write this blog on stimulating creativity from the point of view of an external agency creative director “out in the field.” Like anyone else confronted with this sort of challenge, I immediately Googled “stimulating creativity.” That brought up a treasure-trove of writing on …

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  • Creativity Born Out of Structure

    June 29, 2015

    Yes, you read the title right. The all-important and often overlooked way to stimulate creativity is through structure.

    Technology, process, organizational design, and purposeful management trump latte machines, foosball tournaments and in-house yoga classes when it comes to encouraging innovation. …

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  • Idea-Generating Techniques for the Desperate

    June 22, 2015

    Here’s a general rule of thumb regarding idea-generation techniques: they’re clunky, dorky and time-consuming. Oh, and they don’t work. You reluctantly resort to one when you're under the gun for an idea, then end up wasting valuable time that leaves you even more frustrated and desperate and …

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  • The Crystal-Clear Winner

    June 15, 2015

    • by Emily Foster, IHAF

    Each year, numerous winners leave the IHAF Awards Show with accolades in hand. Only one team, however, walks away with the coveted, crystal Best of Show trophy—the clear stand-out among all of the work submitted that year.

    The Best of Show winner is chosen at the end of a day-long process where …

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