Avalon Dispatch 02.11.2025

Last week, I focused on my continuing education in small business finance along with Avalon’s senior VP of finance, Kristina Deutsch . It was helpful to hear what should be on our radar, and it was very affirming: I am so proud of Avalon’s best practices in accounting and finance, and I’m grateful to Kristina and her team for making this part of our work seamless. Thank you all!

Tariff Impact on Direct Response Fundraising

The Trump Administration has rolled out their election promise to levy tariffs. While I expect this to have a significant impact on the economy in general, the impact on paper for our direct mail programs should be minimal. The U.S. imports over $3 billion in paper pulp from China, but only a small portion is used for the paper we use for direct mail. Organizations who import direct marketing premiums will be affected, but Avalon’s clients do not use a lot of premiums in general and in many cases use domestically produced products. Thank you to senior VP Jackie Libby, production director Michael Schweikart, and our production vendors for keeping us informed during this process.

And the Grammy Goes To…

Congratulations to San Francisco Symphony for winning a 2025 Grammy award! Their live concert recording of Adriana Mater won the award for Best Opera Recording at last week’s event. Recorded live in June 2023 and released in August 2024, the concert highlights the incredible roster of talent at both the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. Even better, this is far from their first such prestigious honor—last week’s win was San Francisco Symphony’s 17th Grammy award. Amazing!

New Feature from ChatGPT

ChatGPT has announced a new feature it calls Deep Research. This advance will “leverage reasoning” across a “massive” range of sources, to “find, analyze, and synthesize hundreds of online sources to create a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst.” It’s a powerful feature, like having an expert in your pocket, that will be exciting to test. However, it isn’t perfect: OpenAI is still learning to assess the accuracy of sources and to make strong inferences. For now, proceed with caution and use human judgment.

Words to Avoid

Our friends at Big Duck have released this year’s edition of Words to Avoid. Each entry is thought-provoking, and I am always interested to hear their point of view. In addition, I appreciate the evergreen message that great communications clearly say what we mean, and don’t assume that our audience speaks our jargon. The biggest challenge on this year’s list for marketers may be the phrase “target audience,” which they suggest replacing with “priority, primary, essential and key.”

Fun with Fonts

Cheetos is having fun with the cheese-dust-finger plight of its consumers in their latest marketing move. Their new campaign features a messy “stunt font,” created by Cheetos graphic designers who drew the font mid-snack. It’s a fun take on a distinctly Cheetos problem that resonates authentically with consumers’ brand experience.

“This campaign is clever and a good reminder that marketing stunts work when they relate to a brand’s personality.” – Avalon marketing VP Barb Perell

Panda Cam Is Back!

Giant pandas Bao Li and Qing Bao made their public debut at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute on January 24. The Zoo hosted a District of Panda Party for them through February 9, and I’m happy to report they have relaunched their famous Giant Panda Cam! It is live from 7am – 7pm ET, then it rebroadcasts for virtual visitors around the world. Enjoy!

Take care,