Pull colors from the real world and bring them to life in your space with Sherwin-Williams ColorSnap™, a free color-matching iPhone app. To the cheers of color fiends the world over, we created this ground-breaking app last year. Just this week we’ve released a host of new features that allow consumers to customize their color choices even further. (And it’s shareable, too.)

What’s new in Version 2.0:

• Select up to three colors in a single photo
• Shake for a random color palette based on your photo
• Save inspirational photo with resulting color palette
• View and enlarge individual color swatches
• Fine tune color lightness, saturation and hue
• Create, adjust, name and save custom color palettes
• Explore the full Sherwin-Williams color palette
• Search for colors by color family, name or Sherwin-Williams color number
• Share color palettes via email and Facebook
• Use Google Maps integration to find your nearest store

It’s now even easier to match real-world colors with paint colors and bring all your ideas to life.  See more at http://Sherwin.com/ColorSnap or just grab your iPhone and download it now. For free.

Launched in 2006, the iCitizen Symposium is an intimate, invitation-only event that gathers together Resource Interactive clients and partners for super-charged idea exchange, beta first looks and great networking.

We’re thrilled to announce that iCitizen 2010 will once again bring together some of the key thinkers and players in digital marketing and media to crack the code on a new aspect and experience of digital: the real-time web.

Rippling quietly at first, the real-time web’s multiplying streams and feeds of content have already altered consumer behavior. The immediate has become paramount and peer opinion is nearly omnipresent. Local and global trends are at everyone’s fingertips, and mobile has finally reached its tipping point. Brands online must modify their tempo and tack. A new business imperative rises up from the real-time web: go with the flow.

Learn more about iCitizen.

It’s a great day at Resource Interactive. For the first time in agency history, we’ve been chosen by Advertising Age as one of five agencies on their way to the top in its renowned Agency of the Year issue. Our ranking? Number three.

2009 has been an incredible year here at Resource. To be recognized by Ad Age is an idyllic conclusion to the most successful year in our 28-year history. In a challenging environment, we’re especially proud of our continued growth as an agency—and we’re proud to be in the company of such great agencies, both traditional and digital. Quite frankly, we can’t think of a better way to kick off 2010.

This Friday, we’ll  hold our annual meeting. Otherwise known as Nancy Kramer’s favorite time of year, it’s a day where we review the past year and set the tone for the year that lies ahead. It’s also a day full of excitement and surprise. As we head into our most important meeting of the year, we can think of no better way to celebrate the hard work and dedication of our associates. Congratulations!!!

See our entry below—and view the article in its entirely here: http://bit.ly/7NmlBd

3. RESOURCE INTERACTIVE
Like many agencies, Resource Interactive had a difficult 2008. But it rebounded with a vengeance, turning 2009 into what Nancy Kramer and Kelly Mooney — the shop’s founder-CEO and chief experience officer, respectively — rank the best in the agency’s 28-year history. The Columbus, Ohio-based digital shop raked in $41 million in revenue last year, up from $36 million in 2008, according to Ad Age’s DataCenter. More than a quarter of ‘09 revenues came from new clients, but it grew organically too, nearly doubling business from existing client Coca-Cola and P&G brands Clairol and Gillette Venus. Resource’s growth has been aided by its prowess in the consumer-packaged goods sector, and those companies’ new-found commitment to digital marketing. The agency’s CPG clients, which also include Scotts-Miracle Gro, Bush’s Baked Beans and Lean Cuisine, drove the agency’s roughly 30% growth in headcount this year — and its opening of a Cincinnati outpost to service P&G.

When Sebastian Professional selected Resource to lead a long-term interactive program for the brand, we responded with a uniquely holistic and scalable marketing campaign that further establishes Sebastian as the authority in hair fashion—the What’s Next Awards (WNA). Imagine the opportunity: The WNA encourages stylists to showcase their most fearless, original hair styles and vie for recognition among their peers, clients and the industry’s best stylists. Two challenge winners will receive the ultimate reward as a guest Sebastian stylist at Fashion Week in NYC.

The result is a digitally-led campaign with both online and offline components designed to deliver on Sebastian’s promise of what’s next in “fearless” hair artistry while driving engagement and inspiring brand advocacy with stylists and beauty junkies alike. And as the lead agency on the campaign, we’re having our own runway moment—The What’s Next Awards is the first communication idea to be led by a digital agency for the Sebastian brand, as well as the entire Procter & Gamble professional hair portfolio in North America.

Wondering what’s next for your brand? Email us at inquiry@resource.com and let us put our big ideas to work for you.

See What’s Next

For thirteen years, Resource Interactive has studied retailers online during their high-stakes holiday season. Why the holiday focus? We’ve noticed that certain competitive advantages become highly conspicuous during these days of intense consumerism—the holiday season can either make or break the year for retailers. In other words, it offers us the opportunity to survey a retailer’s biggest moment and best effort.

Of the 40 online retailers we surveyed using our O.P.E.N. framework, we’ve chosen to feature fifteen in the final report. We focused on the social media, mobile and web site innovation, uncovering quite a few bright spots in a season of innovation and inventiveness. See how retailers fared—from Amazon to Zappos and everywhere in between—and take a look at the most novel marketing moves of the holiday season, which will surely become the everyday fare of 2010. Are you ready?

Download our 2009 O.P.E.N. Watch and share it with your colleagues.

It’s not easy being green—especially when it comes to your office, both at work and at home. Looking to make it a little easier, Hewlett-Packard partnered with RI to bring its new carbon footprint calculators to life. Identify your current home and business environment and the calculators will compare it against more than 3,000 options, both from HP and outside manufacturers. Compare power use, footprint, and usage, ultimately optimizing your environment to reduce carbon, energy, paper and cost.

Reducing your impact is easier than you think.

Go green

Last week, Kelly Mooney presented at the annual NRF convention: Retail’s BIG Show. Armed with Resource Interactive’s millennials and moms research, Kelly shared how marketing to moms and at-home millennials can help retailers thrive during and after a recession.

Check out the entire presentation:
The New Domestic Economy

In November 2009, Resource Interactive introduced Off the Wall, the first-ever end-to-end ecommerce experience for brands and their fans on Facebook that allows consumers to purchase products directly from the Wall. Our first client, fashion retailer The Limited, was live by mid December. Read what industry analysts and media have to say about Off the Wall by visiting the links below.

The Wall Street Journal: “Shopping Comes to Your Facebook Stream”
Advertising Age: “Resource Interactive Goes Off the Wall for Shopping on Facebook”
Forrester Research: “Off the Wall: A New Social Commerce Experiment on Facebook”
Inside Facebook: “Facebook Roundup: Jivebug, The Limited, Starbucks, Seppukoo and Eminem”

Be sure to experience Off the Wall live on Facebook at The Limited Facebook fan page. And stay tuned as we continue to bring Facebook and ecommerce together on behalf of our clients. If you’re interested in what Off the Wall can bring to your brand, please email us at inquiry@resource.com.

Today Resource Interactive launched its first implementation of Off the Wall, bringing ecommerce to the Facebook stream for the first time. The Limited, a fashion retailer with a loyal fan base, offered an exclusive deal to its fans using Off the Wall.

See it in action at The Limited fan page.