"Failing to plan is planning to fail," according to time management guru Alan Lakein. August may seem like a strange time to talk about holiday retail sales but the reality is many businesses need three to six months to plan and execute an effective marketing plan. Find out what you can gain by planning ahead for seasonal promotions...

The Adaptive Sports Association (ASA) in Durango, Colorado works with students to overcome physical and cognitive challenges in a supportive environment, and is celebrating 30 years of inspiring individuals with special needs through participation in outdoor sports and activities such as skiing, rafting, canoeing and camping..

Creating a Killer Brand

The Opportunity

SCRAM Crawling Insect Killer offers an affordable, organic and safe pesticide. To launch their product, the company needed to create and build their brand, so they called their local FASTSIGNS® for help.

The world's most iconic signs can be found on postcards, t-shirts, popular vacation photos and all over social media. Whether the sign was made famous by the location, what it represents or by its pop culture significance, these one-of-a-kind signs are continually photographed and shared. People from all over the world stop to snap photos of these famous signs that represent everything from the Golden Age of rock music to the slots of Sin City...

The Opportunity

The Wendy's® Company, the third largest quick-service hamburger company in America, has been a customer of FASTSIGNS® since 1990. In 2012, Wendy's ended a merger with the Arby's Group in Atlanta and moved their headquarters back to Dublin, Ohio.

The most successful product launches will inspire masses to camp out in front of retail stores and preorder products before they're even released. And today's technologies allow marketers to reach wider audiences than ever before for product launches. The same companies that once relied on print-based advertising now also use viral social media posts and interactive marketing to spread the word about their product launch. The products below each had a strategic launch campaign that created the kind of pre-release buzz that skyrockets awareness and sales.

Hand painted signs have been a large component in the long history of visual advertising. Sign painters displayed their eye-catching work on restaurants, billboards, political advertisements, traffic signs and more. Hand-drawn and painted signs created a rich visual landscape of colors and fonts. Though hand painted signs faded away as illustration software came onto the scene, a large resurgence of artisanal signage has occurred as a whole new generation admires the resonant imagery of handcrafted signs by coupling this craft with today's production technology. The history of painted signage is as rich as its bold visuals and a renaissance of this visual style is transforming the way the public looks at old-fashioned advertising signage.

The Opportunity

Hockey Canada® is the national governing body of ice hockey in Canada. They contacted FASTSIGNS® because they needed assistance producing and installing various types of arena signage for their National Female Midget Championship (NFMC) in April 2013. Since the tournament has a high number of attendees, Hockey Canada needed to control traffic flow and warn attendees of restricted areas, as well increase awareness about the upcoming tournament.

Companies change their logos to indicate anything from a shift in strategy to the simple need to modernize their brand. Some logo changes are subtle, while others look nearly unrecognizable from their former designs. Brand loyalists and design critics have no problem voicing their opinions of these "flops" and sometimes enough negative feedback of a poor redesign can cause a company to return to its original logo.

The Opportunity

THEMUSEUM in Kitchener, Ontario hosted the Unwrapping Egypt exhibition with 400 replica artifacts from the world-famous tomb of King Tutankhamun.

Sports advertising has evolved dramatically over the years. From wooden signs and baseball cards to LED Jumbotrons and massive athlete endorsements, sports advertising has a lasting influence on pop culture. Sports fans are some of the most loyal brand patrons and the best sports advertisers play upon this devotion. Sports are advertised three ways: marketing by sports associations like the National Football League (NFL) or Major League Baseball (MLB), marketing products or services at specific sporting events, or promoting a sport in general in order to increase public participation. The history of sports advertising is as colorful as the means used to display it. Below is a timeline of historical milestones in sports advertising that show just how much the industry has changed over the years.

The Opportunity

Once the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation took full ownership of the State Fair of Virginia, the management wanted to update the look of the fairgrounds to create excitement about the annual event.