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FreeAssociates moves to new headquarters

The largest event of its kind

Historic real estate award

 

Nice move

 

FreeAssociates, an award winning design and advertising firm, has relocated its headquarters to 2300 Westwood Boulevard, Suite 105, Los Angeles 90064-2045. 

The space is part of a classic 60's building undergoing complete renovation, where the respected West Los Angeles firm of Meyer Archtecture will also be housed.

Anthony Greenberg, who designed the famed dining hotspot Maple Drive, was the buildiing's original architect, and its new owner, Walter B. Meyer, AIA, is carefully restoring the building to its original clean lines. Meyer intends to create an elegant, upbeat enclave of creative firms with the possiblity of sharing resources and ideas, and working together as opportunities present themselves.

“We're excited to be a part of this kind of creative community,” says FreeAssociates founder and president Josh Freeman.  “The building is being beautifully restored and will be completely re-landscaped.  With two excellent architectural firms officing here, and more creative companies coming onboard, there are great opportunties for team-building and partnering.” (more)

President and creative director Josh Freeman phreneticallly packing and moving absolutely everything out of our old office — including his son, Gabriel.

Careful! That's wet spackle you're backing into!

2300 Westwood's owner, architect Walter Meyer AIA supervises the construction of our new space.

The new building's courtyard is being completely renovated, repainted and re-landscaped. Here, Walter tests paint colors.

Remember this "before" photo....and wait till you see the "afters"!

Associate Patricia Payró pauses during a late night of unpacking.

Things are actually starting to take shape! But those old window coverings have got to go. (They did.)

 

Josh and associate creative director Wendy Tigerman carry several hundred pounds of boxes into the new space.

Another demonstration of the teamwork, sweat and briliiance you'll find every day at FreeAssociates.

FreeAssociates just wrapped its seventh straight year of creating the marketing materials for the Mercedes-Benz Cup tennis tournament, one of the most prestigious annual sporting events on the West Coast. Thanks in part to the campaign, ticket sales increased more than 10% over last year’s already record-setting levels and sponsor revenues hit a new high.  FreeAssociates also created, for the sixth year, the graphics and advertising for the highly successful Revlon Run/Walk For Women, an event sponsored by The Entertainment Industry Foundation to support research on women’ cancers.

About FreeAssociates

Free Associates is a marketing design consultancy known for its carefully targeted (and frequently award-winning) marketing tools for a wide cross-section of corporate clients, presently including Senior Resource Group, Ameriflight, First 5 LA Connect, Community Dynamics  and Coming Home Studios, among others.  For more information, contact Josh Freeman at 310-441-9950 or visit freeassoc.com.

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FreeAssociates helps Revlon Run/Walk For Women raise over $3 million to fight women’s cancers.

 

For the sixth year in a row, FreeAssociates created the graphics and advertising for the highly successful Revlon Run/Walk For Women, an event sponsored by The Entertainment Industry Foundation to support research on women’ cancers. With 5k's in both Los Angeles and New York City, this event is one of the largest of its kind in the nation. Courtney Thorne-Smith, Jim Belushi, Jaime King and Karen Duffy co-hosted.

Created in 1993 by EIF, Lilly Tartikoff, Ronald O. Perelman and The Davis Group, the Revlon Run/Walk has generated some $30 million to help fund breast and ovarian cancer research. Major beneficiaries include the Revlon/UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program (which pioneered the breakthrough breast cancer drug Herceptin), the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center & Hospital Breast & Ovarian Cancer Program, and the Gilda Radner Ovarian & Breast Cancer Detection Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

The event itself is exhilarating, with 50,000 dedicated participants in L.A. and another 15,000 in New York — many supporting family members or friends who have had cancer. This year, they raised over $3 million.

Web marketing even more crucial in 2004
For this year’s event, FreeAssociates redesigned and updated the event’s Web site (www.revlonrunwalk.com) which has become a critical element of the overall campaign. The firm also created advertising and support collateral, including brochures, posters, in-store counter cards, event signage, credentials, t-shirts, team-building and participant mailing materials. Once again, the New York branch of the event based its campaign on many of the materials we created for the West Coast.

This year's marketing campaign was a team event, as well. Josh Freeman, Dave Bourne and Joe Riehm all participated actively in developing the campaign.

Read more about the Revlon Run/Walk and FreeAssociates.

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FreeAssociates’ project wins historic real estate award for innovative marketing
 
 

To hear the judges tell it, they couldn’t get El Paseo out of their minds. While reviewing entries for The Nationals, the prestigious sales and marketing competition sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders, the panelists kept coming back to the marketing materials for El Paseo. Built by FreeAssociates’ client Community Dynamics, this real estate development gave 190 low-income buyers in Oxnard, California, an opportunity to own their own home.

El Paseo runs with the big guys
With 1007 entrants, The Nationals is the country’s largest competition for new home sales and marketing professionals. Competition is stiff – more than a few of the nominated real estate projects are multi-million dollar residential developments, with substantial marketing budgets. Entries are subjected to a three-day evaluation marathon, by a judging panel of top real estate marketing pros, including architects, builders, market research consultants, trade publishers, and editors.
The judges knew that El Paseo’s minimal marketing budget meant a smaller campaign. In reality, such small projects never win The Nationals’ "Best Community" prizes – they simply aren’t entered in enough categories to accumulate sufficient total points. But the committee thought this development deserved special recognition.
In the end, the panel created the Judges’ Special Community Award for Marketing Excellence for El Paseo – a one-time award to highlight this special community. And the hundreds of industry professionals gathered in Atlanta heard about how a development with a limited marketing budget managed to win the hearts of the event judges.

Just one of several awards
The award recognized the efforts of the entire marketing team for El Paseo – and as the design and advertising agency for the project, FreeAssociates played a key role. In addition to the Judges’ Special Award, FreeAssociates won 5 other awards for its work on the El Paseo project:

  • Gold award for Best Black and White Ad under 1/2 page
  • Silver award for Best Logo Design
  • Silver award for Best Brochure for a Community with average sales price under $200,000
  • Silver award for Best Signage Program
  • Silver award for Best Sales Office 550 sf & under (shared with longtime colleagues Two’s Company Interiors, who also won Best Interior Merchandising of a Model with an average sales price under $200,000)

A stroll through the El Paseo marketing effort
Foregoing traditional marketing techniques, the team embarked on an intensive community-based outreach program to promote these affordable homes targeting low income, predominately Hispanic buyers. The project’s name and identity graphics reflected this community spirit. Using a cut-paper style evocative of Central and North American folk art, we created a colorful, playful scene that became the key image. It was designed so that individual elements could be pulled out and used in various combinations throughout the campaign.
We created a brochure that conveyed an inclusive, family-oriented sense of neighborhood that strongly differentiated the property from competitors. The brochure’s unusual size stood out, but was also economical. Radically different "renderings" incorporated bold color to add life and depth to the architect’s elevations.
The advertising — which reflected the warmth and fun of the project’s visual identity —was designed to attract traffic not directly to the homes, but to three informational assemblies held in the community. Over two weeks, more than 3,000 people attended the gatherings, and 1,000 families stood in line on Registration Day for the opportunity to own their own home.
The result was a sales rate of 24 homes a month for 8 straight months.

See the El Paseo marketing campaign for yourself.

The marketing team
Creating the marketing materials for El Paseo was a team effort at FreeAssociates. Led by creative director Josh Freeman, Will Slaton designed the key image. Kevin Consales adapted the theme, and designed all of the materials. Josh Freeman wrote the copy for the brochure, which was adapted for other materials.

Read more about the El Paseo.

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