Brett Banter

Brett inc., for those who don't know, is located in Greenville, S.C., which is the so-called buckle of the old-time Bible Belt. However, Greenville has been very progressive when it comes to changing with the times and promoting news ideas.

Halloween now falls into that category. Sort of. It used to be that if October 31 fell on a Sunday that everyone in Greenville knew to celebrate Halloween the night before. No questions asked. No one thought any differently of it. About a decade ago as people from places that celebrated Halloween no matter when it fell on the calender moved here, they began to question when to celebrate. So local governments and law enforcement laid down the rules. Halloween would be celebrated on Saturday even if it fell on a Sunday.

Well, Halloween falls on a Sunday this year, and confusion reigns here and in the rest of the Upstate. Those doctrines appear to be out the window. Greenwood, for example, is celebrating it on a Sunday, but the mall there is having an event on Saturday. Most other places are leaving it up to the will of the people. So neighborhood by neighborhood will be celebrating on Saturday or Sunday or both.

Two questions? When are you celebrating Halloween? And is it needed? My little girl already has a treat bag full of candy from church and school. I don't think she needs any more.

It's the Halloween Conundrum.

We're assisting on a great downtown Greenville project next week to help build a playground for the new A.J. Whittenberg Elementary. This is a major endeavor for Greenville and we need as many people as possible helping. CLick on the hyperlink above to find times to sign up.

Thanks,


The Brett Team

One of the tricker parts of media relations is meeting the expectations of clients. A lot of firms struggle with this concept because they don't get their clients to say exactly what they want and instead try to forcefeed them the demands of other clients. A friend of mine snipped in an e-mail the other day about a group that recently put a notice in the paper stating to give them a call and they will listen. It should have said "call us, you'll listen," she quipped. That is not what we do at Brett. Our goal is to listen to you, and then work with you to make your business grow. It is a simple solution that brings great results.

So give us a call. We will listen.

What makes a business succeed? It is a quality product? A new idea? A good solid team of workers? Most business owners will immediately say that some combination of those three are the keys to growth. However, when asked about creating brand awareness, they draw somewhat of a blank look.

And that is where Brett comes in. We create full-fledged media campaigns to help businesses become part of the fabric of their communities. It is more than just a press release. We handle media contacts, interviews, events, working with the community, finding the right projects to partner with and so much more.

So is your business struggling despite have a quality product, a new idea and a solid team? It may be time to give us a call.

The big announcement that we have been working on for weeks is finally here. Woodlands is now a Life Care retirement community. This puts the Woodlands essentially in an entirely new world when it comes to providing services for its residents.

Get more here. You will be amazed.

The Connector 2000 Association made its case to the Greenville County Legislative Delegation Monday night about restructuring the Southern Connector's bonds.

While the legislators didn't take any action, a case to allow the board, the Department of Transportation and bond holders, appeared to have made some headway. The state Senate needs to pass an amendment that will allow for this to happen, if not the status quo will be maintained.

Richard Few, the Association's chairman, made some great points about why the bonds needs to be restructured including it essentially will allow the state to get paid for maintenance work, it will pay back the bonds that the business community rallied behind more than a decade ago and this is a public road that has help facilitate more than $400 million worth of new roads in the Upstate.

"This will be a credit to the state," Few said.

As part of the push, the entire Connector 2000 board attended the meeting to show the legislators the severity of the situation. Basically, the 16-mile toll road has never met the traffic projections submitted when the highway was passed by the state in the 1990s. The Association had nothing to do with that traffic study, but has been the group tasked with finding a solution.

It has been a busy week as the Greenville News also opined on the situation.

The restructuring will not add any taxes to the state nor will taxpayers have to pay anything. This is simply to give more time for the bonds to be repaid, which in the end helps the state.

Google, the multi-billion dollar company that became a verb synonomous with looking up items on the Web, has announced a massive plan/inititaive/saving grace aimed for something it has dubbed Google Fiber. The tech speak basically is a high-speed Internet connection advertised as more than 100 times faster than normal that would be test marketed in a community between 50,000 and 500,000 people.

What is the criteria besides that? Google itself isn't saying much, but apparently creativity is a key thhing as pretty much every city, county and burg that fits the population criteria is trying to get a piece of the Google puzzle. Hundreds of Greenville residents, for example, met in Falls Park to spell out the Google logo using glow sticks. Other cities are doing similar things.