the mash

It’s the time of year for gratitude. We gathered our team to share around the virtual Thanksgiving table what they’re most grateful for this year, at work and at home.

The U.S. housing supply is said to be anywhere from three to five million units short of demand. The ensuing crisis was years in the making—and these recommended articles and podcasts from our team will help expand your understanding of its root causes. Introducing Deep Dive, our newest column, where Interrupt teammates share the resources shaping their industry-related insights and knowledge.

Know thy audience—it's a key marketing commandment. And a fast-growing portion of that audience in the United States is Latinos, nearly 20% of the population contributing $3.2 trillion—with a T—to the country’s GDP. Knowing their spending power and inclination towards entrepreneurship, the smartest companies will work to capture this market share by honing a smart strategy. We tell you how.

So, you’re considering a brand makeover. But do you have the right reasons? Identifying the cause for overhauling your go-to-market identity (or at least evolving it) is as important as the quality of the new work you’ll commission. Interrupt creative directors share the four times your company may be due for a rebrand.

Surfing the reams of data available on the internet can feel gnarly. But good decision making depends on having the right information. How do you get it without drowning? Sandy Embrescia-Hridel, our director of strategic insights, has crafted his own method for conquering info overload. He’s distilled it into five easy tips anyone can adopt to stay better informed.

Constant evolution isn’t just a luxury in brand management, it’s a requirement; your brand must align with your target demographic’s changing generations, not vice versa. Here, Interrupt’s Executive Creative Director and Brand Strategist Anita Holman explains how brands can evolve their strategy to capture new consumers entering their target demographic and avoid being overtaken by more agile marketers.

Repeat after us: you are not just a manufacturer of products. And one of the best times to remember that is during your strategic planning sessions. Whether you’re a large, multi-billion-dollar corporation or a small business, the way you approach your strategic planning process is crucial to your success. And one of the most important pieces is identifying your real purpose, beyond the product you make. Read on for three critical questions to consider.

If you’re a manufacturer of American-made goods, you already know the value of the “Made in America” claim has ebbed and flowed over the past few decades. Recently, however, it seems to be making a comeback. Bill Rossiter, agency owner and principal, discusses Morning Consult’s “Made in America” report and shares how you can leverage the power of Made in the USA on your own homegrown products.

Mentorship efforts in many companies can look like rigid and formal programs. While those efforts are important, for a game-changing effect, you need to embed mentorship into your culture and the way your team relates to each other. Here, Agency Principal Bill Rossiter’s reviews the do's and don’ts of effective mentorship.

Fresh to the creative team, Graphic Designer Hayley Kandik feels there’s a thing or two they don’t teach you in college. So, in the interest of supporting other young design professionals, she’s presenting a list of things they don’t teach you in college, an incomplete compilation that nevertheless will get new grads and established career professionals alike thinking about how to improve onboarding and mentorship processes for first-year professionals.

While businesses nationwide strive for diversity, age remains a largely overlooked aspect. Conversations tend to focus on gender and race, but a team with a wide range of life and work experiences is incredibly powerful. Learn why a multigenerational team is a key differentiator that’s too often overlooked.

In the short time since artificial intelligence became part of our daily lives and public debates, it’s already made seismic shifts in the way people work. We gathered our agency’s internal AI task force, which includes writers, designers, marketers and digital experts, for a roundtable discussion of AI’s impact, learning how they expect it to change agencies, politics and beyond.

As companies realize the importance of AI, they're pouring more money than ever into the technology so as not to get left behind. But since the technology is (in many ways) maturing faster than what we can, or are willing to, execute on, we have to figure out how to correct for “the human factor”—both corporate leadership vision and team execution. How do you ensure it isn’t a limitation for success in your adoption of AI? Read Interrupt Principal Bill Rossiter’s take on the importance of AI on enabling the future success of your team and business performance.

Interrupt has given countless hours of team time over the years, volunteering for everything from Habitat for Humanity builds to multiple sclerosis fundraising. Agency principal and owner Bill Rossiter shares why the company’s giveback philosophy is so focused on hands-on contributions, and addresses the surprising ROI of community involvement for businesses large and small.

How does a logo go from an idea to a reality? At Interrupt, it's a time-intensive and thorough process of taking ideas and identifiers then distilling them down to their visual essence. It takes many different brains coming together, fashioning countless iterations, to create something that stands out from the crowd and represents the core of a company. Take a peek inside the process.