Happy Holidays from the SVCO Team!

As we close in on 2024, we want to leave you with another bit of wicked, festive fun and cultural learning with our favorite theme of spooky and strange holiday traditions. We begin with a favorite, and yes, it's true. Another rather disturbing but wonderful holiday tradition from another land has become Americanized. With the onset of Krampuscon and an abundance of hairy, tusked Krampus parades marching across the US, including Portland, the Krampus legend is becoming as American as Santa Claus. We do love our monsters in this country, even at Christmas.

And yet, we are not alone! As we yearn to fulfill our passion for writing about bizarre holiday folklore, we have found a new sample of fascinating and sometimes gruesome tales of creatures that prance and sometimes trample through this most festive time of year.

Photo: Krampus, St. Nicolas and the Angel - Getty

It’s Giving Tuesday!

There’s no better way to celebrate the season than by supporting the organizations that do great good!

It's the Start of the Spooky Season!

Exploring the "Why" Behind our Chills and Thrills

October is bewitching. The air is crisp, leaves transform into red, yellow, and gold, an eerie morning mist hovers just above the ground, and bright orange pumpkins are piled high at local supermarkets. But the spooky season is more than pumpkin spice lattes and candy corn; it's the month when evening shadows become ominous, strange shapes lurk just out of sight, and the thought of Halloween's ghosts and ghouls sends delightful shivers down our spines.

As we enter the spooky season and it conjures the thrill of the unknown, we can't help but wonder why being frightened is so much fun.

June is Pride Month, and it’s Time to Celebrate! Every Individual's Beautiful and Unique Identity Matters.

Pride is here, and in today's environment of rising transphobia, it’s a critical time and opportunity to raise awareness and build advocacy around the challenges facing the trans and LGBTQ+ community.

SVCO Strategies is honored to stand in solidarity with our loved ones, LGBTQ+ artists, activists, and business leaders for the rights of the LGBTQ+ and Transgender People to be visible and own their identity without challenge.

Portland’s weather is going to be record-breaking this week!

As temperatures move north of average this weekend, SVCO has a pet-friendly reminder to take care of your pets. With temperatures predicted to be in the 80’s and 90’s, it’ll be hot-hot-hot out there! And if it’s scorching for you, imagine how much worse it is when you’ve got fur! Providing plenty of water for your furry friends goes without saying, but there are a couple of other reminders for folks after a long wet and cold PNW winter.

Women's History Month is almost over, but that doesn't mean you should stop reading excellent books about women: their strength, resilience, and achievements! Whether it's horror novels that reflect on feminist ideas or some of the hardest-hitting feminist literature of the last 100 years, these five books have your bases covered to keep the Women's History Month energy well into summer.

Spooky Season Classics that Live up to the Hype.

Monster movies and spooks give you chills and thrills this Halloween!

Halloween is coming right up! If you’re as fond of spooky movies as we are, you’ve been binging horror media all month. If you’re looking to get in the mood, we at SVCO Strategies have a few recommendations to get you prepped for the big night!

We subdivided by monster, so you can pick and choose your favorite creepy crawlies.

Local Legends and Campfire Tales.

Get ready for goosebumps this Labor Day with local tales of local haunted places and spooky spectres!

As Content Manager of SVCO Strategies, I was lucky enough to attend Adweek’s 2022 Social Media Week in NYC. Among the speakers were Beverly Jackson, global VP of Brand and Consumer Marketing at Twitter; John Battaglia, Head of Partnerships at Google; and Todd Kaplan, Chief Marketing Officer at Pepsi. Not to mention the trendsetting Steve Aoki. 

It was great to hobnob with brilliant media minds from every corner of the country! There was a great deal of discussion about Web3, the metaverse, and the future of marketing. Tiktok, of course, was another huge item. One thing everyone but the speakers talked a lot about was the buffet! 

While best practices vary wildly network by network, the major takeaways from the dozens of presentations can best be summarized as three key lessons: 

Create an experience for your customers.

Create a community rather than simply a collection of followers.

The most critical - authenticity is key in online content.