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Since starting Dotted Line in 2014, CEO Lauren Sweeney has learned countless lessons as she built the company into a mid-level marketing agency. She shares how finding A-player team members, sharpening her influence skills and reframing her relationship to failure have shaped her into the leader she is today.
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In her 25-plus-year career, Dotted Line Managing Director of Client Services Marci Schnur has led numerous large-scale campaigns and built lasting relationships with diverse clients. She reflects on her most significant learning experiences, her best and worst business decisions, and offers her insights for the industry’s current and future challenges.
Continue to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
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Dotted Line’s leadership team has grown to include Managing Director of Client Services Marci Schnur and Creative Director Jason Anderson, while Emily Shane has been promoted to Strategy Director. They’re lending 60-plus years of combined marketing experience to help develop highly effective solutions for clients while bringing a clear vision and passion to the agency.
Continue to AdForum.
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In a piece featured in Richmond BizSense, Creative leaders Mitchell Jordan and Jason Anderson describe what it was like to start at Dotted Line as a creative team of two and how they continue to push the creative envelope. Read the article below.
https://richmondbizsense.com/2021/09/07/creative-qa-dotted-line-duo-goes-from-ndp-to-making-an-nft/
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Lauren Sweeney was recently featured on The Leap podcast with host, Tim May, where she detailed the origin story of Dotted Line and the powerful metamorphosis of her mindset from being singularly goal oriented to being vision driven.
Listen to the full episode here.
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You hear it all the time from super successful people, long before they were running multimillion-dollar companies, they were strengthening their entrepreneurial muscle by selling lemonade on the corner, inventing the next “big thing” in their garage or helping their parents or grandparents run the “mom and pop” family business after school. It seems that for most successful people, whether they are working for a company or running their own company, the entrepreneurial mindset sets them apart from the rest.
In this episode, Lauren Sweeney, Founder and CEO of Dotted Line, shares her own story of growing up in a family of small business owners and how developing her entrepreneurial mindset helped her succeed in her corporate career and ultimately gave her the courage to follow her passion and start her own business.
Listen to the full episode here.
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Dotted Line has set up shop in Henrico County’s Forest Office Park, one of several local marketing agencies to recently migrate to Richmond’s West End. CEO Lauren Sweeney spoke with Richmond BizSense about how the 6,600-square-foot facility (which we share with Spinnaker Consulting Group) perfectly fits the needs of our fast-growing company.
Continue to Richmond BizSense.
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Each year, Richmond Biz Sense presents a list of top advertising, marketing and public relations firms in the Richmond area. This year, Dotted Line Collaborations was added to the list as a top marketing firm in Richmond.
Find full list here.
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Richmond BizSense
Ad Rewind: memorable advertising and marketing moments
By Jonathan Spiers
From wind sprinting and yoga posing chia bars, to slow drawing sloths and “awful” Cobb Technologies coworkers, Richmond’s advertising industry gave us lots to look at in 2017.
It was a year that saw CarMax go “all in” for a used car in a parody ad, power-walking pickers turning into junkyard mechanics, and a new Richmond agency giving its first crack at a campaign for its one, and so far only, client: Google.
Here are our picks for this year’s standout locally produced ads, in no particular order, pulled from The Pitch and other BizSense coverage:
PARK GROUP/WORK LABS – HEALTH WARRIOR ANIMATED VIDEOS
Featuring 3-D animation created in Cinema 4D and After Effects, the four 15-second videos for local health food company Health Warrior feature its protein and chia bars weightlifting, running a marathon and performing wind sprints and yoga poses. The videos were a collaboration between production studio Park Group and brand agency Work Labs.
Barber Martin’s campaign for Chesterfield Auto Parts included 15- and 30-second TV and online video spotsfeaturing a mechanic speaking with someone else’s voice who’s revealed to be a young man or woman. The campaign targeted young pickers and females with television, digital, radio and outdoor advertising.
DOTTED LINE COLLABORATIONS – “THE SOUTH, SOUTH OF THE RIVER”
The ad giant’s latest campaign for longtime client Geico kicked off with this 30-second spot starring a sloth drawing pictures at an extremely slow pace, followed by a spokesman saying, “As long as sloths are slow, you can count on Geico saving folks money.” The campaign, called “Count On,” came on the heels of the final spot for Geico’s long-running “It’s What You Do” campaign.
Known for its ubiquitous radio ads, the local office equipment supplier worked with Studio Center to release its first pair of TV commercials, which feature the company’s employees and voiceovers by owner Freddy Cobb.
The Richmond ad scene’s newest kid on the block released a campaign for Google Chromebook – the agency’s first work for Google since launching in November.
DREAMS FACTORY – ONE BELT, ONE ROAD PROMO VIDEO
While produced by China’s CCTV to promote the country’s One Belt, One Road trade initiative, it took Richmond-based filmmaker Sunny Zhao’s Dreams Factory to bring this 90-second spot to life. Zhao spent 10 days shooting in various countries along the trade route, directing and taking turns behind the camera. The video opened a two-day summit in Beijing and aired as the initiative’s first commercial on CCTV, China’s main state-run television broadcaster.
NDP – “GIVE THE GIFT OF MAYMONT”
Playing on the 19th-century estate’s history as a gift to the city, the pro bono campaign’s posters advertised gift boxes from the fictional “Maymont Memory Company” containing Maymont-specific items and experiences, such as skipping rocks at the Japanese Garden koi pond and blades of grass on Maymont’s rolling hills. Billboard ads promoted such deals as “Free Vitamin D with every visit!” and “Get one grass-stained knee, get another for free!”
Barber Martin’s latest campaign for Virginia Lottery presented lottery scratch games as holiday gift ideas. Including two TV spots, two radio spots, a digital video, and outdoor, print and point-of-sale ads, the campaign involved video production work from MadBox and audio work from Red Amp Audio.
CARMAX – “CARMAX GOES ALL IN FOR ’96 HONDA ACCORD”
The used car retailer created a 90-second video to respond to a parody ad that went viral on YouTube. The parody ad, by California writer-director Max Lanman, offered to sell his girlfriend’s 1996 Honda Accord starting at $499. CarMax responded with its own video, produced by North Carolina-based agency McKinney, offering to buy the car and other items in the ad for $20,000. Lanman would take CarMax up on its offer, while CarMax’s video, starring McKinney creative director and Brandcenter alum David Sloan, rode the wave of exposure with more than 293,000 views.
Continue to Richmond BizSense.
Earlier this year, Dotted Line partnered with Chesterfield community Magnolia Green to create what Richmond BizSense called one of 2017’s most “memorable” ad and marketing campaigns. With design emulating vintage posters, the campaign showcases the community’s new homes through print and digital ads, as well as a website refresh and other creative marketing methods.
Continue to Richmond BizSense.