AdJourney - the First Fifteen

Article written for The Pinehurst Gazette, Inc - back in 2014... It is a great story and deserves a reading for those who want to know more about AdJourney. “So what do you want to do with your life? What do you love? What drives you?” These questions challenged Brian Sykes one bright July afternoon leaving him much to ponder. Although his answer was immediately clear, the details were as fuzzy as the smudges of charcoal in his sketchbook. “Well, communicating through design drives me, and I thrive at the creative process. I would love to handle advertising campaigns for clients.” “Well then go for it!” his wife Rebekah challenged, and thus began the journey. AdJourney - the First Fifteen is a story of a family living the American dream. The dream that dares anyone to find their passion and go for it - one that epitomizes faith, family, and tons of hard work. The story begins with Brian, who spent his childhood days drawing everything and journey-ing through every book he could find. Escaping to new lands and ideas grew this daydreamer into the life of a visionary, husband, father, and local business man. Art classes and trips to the library were Brian’s favorite endeavors during his childhood days in Hillsborough, NC. When college days drew Brian to Pensacola, Florida, it was intended he meet Dr. Crawford, his academic advisor for his declared Mechanical Engineering major who just happened to be out sick. As fate would have it, Brian was temporarily assigned to Mr. Frank Hicks of the art faculty. After a creative conversation shared with Mr. Hicks, Brian found out that “the starving artist” label was a thing of the past, and yes, you could make a good living with design. That was all the convincing Brian needed. He changed his major from Mechanical Engineering to Communications emphasis Commercial Art, and was well on his way to fulfilling his dream.

College consumed four years quickly. With pens, pencils and paints diminishing with each new technique learned, Brian’s class also just happened to be the first to incorporate computer design. Brian remembers, “We were the first students to go through the program using computers all the way through. Just prior to us, everybody was hand-setting copy and hand-drawing ads. Going from hand comps to digital comps revolutionized the industry. I remember, we started off with the 5 ? floppy disks. When they came out with the 20 megabyte Iomega disc for $50.00 in the college bookstore, they were just the coolest thing ever! The next year they went up to 40 mb for around $45.00. As time passed, the prices continued down as the storage capacity went up. These little steps in technology have been amazing.”

After getting married in 1996, Brian became employed in Winston Salem at Sara Lee Knit Products with a research and development group called ADP—Advanced Development Products. This team of engineers looked for ways to create automated solutions, and Brian’s job was to help them create in-house marketing to showcase their solutions. Once the SLKP started sending manufacturing to plants in Puerto Rico, ADP was phased out, so Brian and his first wife made Southern Pines home. Becoming a graphic designer at Ingraham Time Products in Laurinburg offered more experience in the design and marketing world, but when the marketing position was being moved to Milwaukee, Brian was not interested in moving up North.nbsp; Brian continues, “At the time, there weren’t many job prospects for marketing and design in Moore County, but there was a tremendous need for it. After much deliberation, we decided to just go for it and start our own business. With no money in the bank, no computer for work, and no clients, what could we lose?”

Sykes Design, aka AdJourney, founded on dreams and faith, opened for business in August of 1999. Brian remembers those early days, “Design required a computer. I got a loan from my father-in-law to purchase my first computer, Photoshop Illustrator, and Page Maker; it was just enough to get me on my feet. My MAC had a 15” monitor; today we have laptops with bigger screens. However, it was just the most exciting thing in the world when I was able to set up shop. I had a new business, a new computer, and a new baby on the way.” “On August 4th, I ended up in the hospital with the birth of my first born son Jonathan. When Dr. William Stewart, a pediatrician at Sandhills Pediatrics visited our room to tell us what a fine young son I had, he asked what I did. I proudly told him that we had just started my own design agency called Sykes Design, and in that moment we landed one of my very first client in Sandhills Peds and continued that relationship for well over a decade.

In talking with Dr. Stewart, the challenge presented was to come up with a logo that would communicate that Sandhills Pediatrics sees all ages from birth to 18. Brainstorming led to the idea of portraying the care through footprints, and design incorporated our family’s footprints. My baby Jonathan’s footprints were emblazoned in my very first logo. It was truly a family-run business from the start!” The Ronalter brothers of Baseline Development (formerly of Ingraham) contacted Brian, remembering previous talks with Brian about multimedia DVDs/CDs in business. They asked, “Could you make some CDs for selling real estate?” With another challenge presented, Brian purchased Macromedia Director, taught himself, and began creating multimedia DVDs for property sales. The DVD offered a 3D view, interactive maps, listing details, neighboring properties, video, and the market information.nbsp; “Today this form of technology is ancient history, but in 1999, it was revolutionary. In fact, to my knowledge, nobody else had used a multimedia CD presentation for selling real estate. So we sent CDs out to people who expressed interest in learning more about the properties via the traditional phone calls and letters. The CDs worked on both PC and Mac, so they’d get this fully interactive presentation and would be blown away.”

Brian recalls. “The response showed more interest in the CD presentation than in the listings. It was a great learning process leading to the next step.” Because I was registered with Macromedia as a Director user (only 1 of 3 in NC at that time), I was contacted by a The Avenue Group, a training facility in Charlotte that wanted to know if I could teach an Authorware class. Well, I had never even heard of Authorware. But they said, ‘Well, if you know Director, then you can learn Authorware and come teach.’ Now at the same time, I’m still doing local design jobs,” Brian assures. The next journey for AdJourney arrived with this first training opportunity in teaching Authorware. Brian remarks, “They put me up in a hotel, and I discovered teaching was a tremendous amount of fun. After probably a year of teaching with TAG, I contacted Josh Cavalier.” Josh owned a small company called Interactive Fun which became Lodestone Digital. Josh had the idea that Technology Training should be fun. He got all the little details right with free drinks and snacks, putty, and stress balls at each computer station. Josh was interested in finding someone to teach Flash, Illustrator and Photoshop; Brian began teaching at both facilities.

“A few months later,” Brian informs, “I was contacted by TechHead based in Richmond, Virginia. I did contract training for about 10 years total I guess, all the while handling projects for local clients. Brian smiles, “Now the really fun part about those times is that my wife and the boys would come along with me, and every evening we would share together.” To update the home front, all of the contract training opportunities, enabled us to buy this cute little house right off of May Street in Southern Pines at a great price. Well, it wasn’t cute at the time as everything was avocado green and pink pastels from the ‘70s, but it had tremendous potential. Id work on business during the day and home renovations at night.

“I remember going through Y2K when all of the computers were supposed to change over, and they didn’t know what was going to happen. Everybody was stock-piling food, but not us, we were too busy stock-piling shingles and sheet rock. But anyway, I remember when Y2K came with the year 2000 and absolutely nothing happened - which was a huge blessing for us,” Brian laughs.

My second son Benjamin was born in 2001, and we brought him home from the hospital to our “new” little home, and soon welcomed Nicolas in 2003. We enjoyed our daily downtown Southern Pines, and when Matthew joined our crew in 2006, we were a daily parade! We lived in the Southern Pines house from 1999 to 2007 until the devastation of our house fire. Brian quiets, “The fire devoured everything; our home-based business, our homeschool, our home, our baby photos. It took everything but left us with everything as our family was safe. You learn so quickly that things mean nothing, and people mean the world. We were blown away by the gifts of love and encouragement from our community. Complete strangers offered help, and we enjoyed a renewed love for our home-town.”

A move to the country was in order with four little boys who needed trees to climb, a creek for hunting crayfish, and a swimming hole for summertime fun. A place of serenading crickets and lightening bug night lights. With working from home, homeschooling became the right solution for our family, and the land offered the perfect lab. When Wesley became the Grand Finale on the 4th of July, our home was complete.nbsp; As time grew both the business and completed the family, so grew the technology.

SO LET’S TALK TECHNOLOGY. HOW HAS IT CHANGED OVER THE LAST 15 YEARS?

We’ve gone from hand comps to digital, and for storage - floppy disks to CDs to DVDs to thumb drives, SD and micro SD cards, and now Cloud storage - which is just unreal.nbsp; When we started business in ’99, we had no cell phone, average consumers still watched VHS tapes, and we still had film in our cameras. DVDs existed but were not readily accessible. ATM’s were still new, and shopping online was unheard of! Yes, we’ve had the Internet since the 60s, but it was more code based - more computer geek kinds of stuff. In the 90s when they applied the graphical interface and search, Internet use exploded and revolutionized the world. This explosion of technology has been through our lifetime, and that’s pretty neat.

MOST ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY RIGHT NOW IN 2014?

For advertising, one of the biggest things would be Web Analytics. For instance, Google is able to track your web traffic, and see what users did when they visit a website. They can see how long consumers are on a page, what items were clicked on, etc. This is the era of big data. Big data for design means that you can design for the masses and measure your effectiveness.

DOES THIS WORK ON THE LOCAL SCALE?

Sure. Social media is a new medium. Facebook is a great example. With Facebook, you can directly communicate with the people who are interested. You can reach a broader audience on a minimal budget. However there is still creative design and strategy associated with it.

BENEFITS OF TECHNOLOGY?

The benefit comes with its reach and its impact, but still requires creative thinking.

DRAWBACKS TO TECHNOLOGY?

Yeah, the complaint regarding print was the inundation of direct-to-mail pieces - IE junk mail. Now with the advent of social media -Facebook, Google, YouTube videos - everything has an ad attached. So you have to truly be creative in finding unique ways to engage people with ideas that interest. The new wave of technology—especially with social media—is to be the source of engaging information that people are drawn to.

WHAT’S THE NEXT STEP?

When I was a teacher at I-Fun, I projected that we would be streaming movies over the Internet within 5 years, and the entire class laughed thinking it was ridiculous. At that time the Internet’s top speed was 56K, which is very slow. We tend to look at where technology is going based on what we know right now. The capabilities are getting richer and broader; so where the computer will go in the future is an expansion of all this. The challenge is not so much the media but rather the time and the effort in creating. Content-rich engagement is the future.

THE EVOLUTION FROM SYKES DESIGN TO ADJOURNEY?

I came up with AdJourney - advertising journey while walking around the horse farms on Youngs Road, and the slogan “design with direction” evolved as we dealt with clients. Clients wanted a Band-Aid solution - a one time fix - and we continually stressed to clients the need for a comprehensive plan in communicating their business. I changed the name to AdJourney offering the entire spectrum of design with direction.

HIGHLIGHT THE CLIENTS OVER FIFTEEN YEARS?

Sandhills Peds offered experience in print based designs from logos to brochures. Baseline Development offered growth in multimedia CDs/DVDs. For Tex Racing (which is now G4 South) we managed advertising on a global scale, with ads literally placed around the world. With Longworth Industries I entered the world of corporate sales and marketing along with being involved with trade shows across America. On a local scale, we’ve designed countless print, web, video, and social media campaigns.

HOW DID THE 2008 RECESSION AFFECT THE BUSINESS WORLD?

Prior to 2008, we were handling accounts for prominent clients, and when the bubble burst in 2008, we lost every single contract one after another. When the financial crisis hit, businesses started asking, “What can we cut?” The first thing they cut is marketing and advertising. So here we are trying to rebuild our lives after the house fire; with a new mortgage, 5 small sons - it couldn’t have come at a worse time, but we survived. I beat on doors and went after anything I could possibly find. Nothing was easy. It required twice as much effort to gain a little work. I went to almost every single business in Moore County; it was a dejecting, challenging time.

Things actually hit rock bottom in our area around 2011. I think those who were struggling in 2008 had already closed their doors, but those who had some residual income, credit, or sheer will, held on. Small businesses had no money for any kind of advertising, marketing, web design, etc. The only source of money were the larger corporations; so that’s who I pursued. When the lowest point for us came in 2011, that’s when Reid and Mary Ann Page approached us again about purchasing The Pinehurst Gazette, Inc. The Pages owned the Gazette for almost 40 years, and they were ready to retire. Seeing we needed something to supplement AdJourney, we accepted their offer. One of the things we liked about the Gazette was it gave us a vehicle to benefit the small mom and pop shops who wanted to get their story out. We officially purchased the Gazette in January 2012, and produced our first Gazette #107 Jul/Aug/Sept, two years ago.”

BUSINESS WORLD IN 2014?

Those businesses who survived the Recession are now hesitant to spend money even with improving markets. Businesses are refining themselves and finding their niche. This is where the marketing and branding really come into play because businesses must communicate what sets them apart from the competition.

MORE PERSONAL MARKETING?

It’s definitely more personal! Social media has opened that up, and people are looking for more transparency in business. The company’s personality is core as consumers have options. In an instant, they can compare prices, read reviews, and consider services. The hometown shops have to keep business personal to compete with Amazon.

ON THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL, ARE THERE IMPROVEMENTS?

I don’t think business will ever return to pre-2008 days in the sense of the free spending. Before 2008, confidence made people a lot freer with their money. Like the mindset of people following The Great Depression, I think we’ve got a little bit of that again in businesses who have had to pinch pennies to survive. Business owners have become frugal in their approach, cautious in spending, and desire a higher guarantee of return.

BUSINESS ADVICE?

Business is about people. You need to network, have an elevator pitch - describe your business in one paragraph and communicate why people should take notice. I’ve worn a lot of hats, but I’m beginning to realize that niche solutions is where it’s at. You need to be the very best you can be in your field and stand out!nbsp; You’ve gotta find that work/life balance. If you give a great deal of time to a project then you’ve gotta take some time off to spend time with your family. You can’t become a workaholic and leave everyone behind.nbsp; You don’t know-it-all; you don’t have the solution for everything. The older I’ve become, the more I realize how much everybody else can bring to the table with their ideas and insights.nbsp; The hardest thing we’ve had to do is set a price tag on creative work. Nobody likes to talk about money, but it’s good to discuss finances and get that out of the way. We’ve realized, the hard way, that people need to invest with their money before we make an investment of our creative services.

IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY?

Working together offers amazing opportunities and sharing every day with my family is remarkable! What’s incredible is how fast the boys grow and how quickly time passes. We try to find that balance between work, family, and play. With both parents working from home, our world is anything but “normal.”

ADJOURNEY OFFERS?

Comprehensive marketing, advertising campaigns, design. We can do any form of print—everything from logos, brochures, fliers, catalogs. Anything you can do in print can be done as digital - plus video, blogging, etc. We help people set up their social media accounts through Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, etc. You give us a budget, and we’ll lay out a plan. We’ve been responsible for million dollar accounts down to a few thousand dollars.

ADJOURNEY IS?

AdJourney is a vehicle for creating creative solutions to highlight your business and to engage the audience who need your services.nbsp;

FAVORITES?

My favorite? Strategy. Creative strategy is tremendously fun. Logo design is probably a close second.

WHY USE ADJOURNEY?

The amazing thing about working with AdJourney is you’re getting a top level creative. The person with whom you discuss your design concepts and marketing plan is the one who does the work; there’s no layer of separation between you and the creative. Often with larger agencies, there’s a disconnect. ...So with design. You hire a designer to help build your business.

WHY HIRE A DESIGNER?

You hire a mason because he’s skilled to build with brick and stone. You hire a carpenter because he can build your home. So with design. You hire a designer to help build your business. The goal behind marketing and advertising is clear, concise communication. There’s a great quotation I use all the time, “The effective speaker realizes the primary purpose of speech is the communication of ideas and feelings in order to get a desired response.” In order to effectively communicate, you need to invest in getting the word out.

THE NEXT FIFTEEN?

No one knows for sure, but you can know that AdJourney is available for all of your advertising needs. We are local, we are family, and we are ready for the next advertising journey.

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Update: AdJourney closed shop in June 2022.