It is with a neutralizing combination of pride and humility that we share the news that we’ve been named on AdAge’s Agencies to Watch list for 2013. The honor comes as part of AdAge’s annual A-List awards, a yearly study of the agencies that have momentum. It’s exciting to be noticed, and at the same time a good reminder not to rest on one’s laurels. We have lots more to come in 2013! To see what AdAge had to say about us, click here.

When you’re craving a burger, why settle for anything less than gourmet? That’s the belief of our newest client, Red Robin, a restaurant with 470 locations nation wide for which we now serve as agency of record. We share their belief when it comes to burgers, and their love of great American food, and we’re stoked up like a hot grill ready to help them achieve their goals.

“Vitro impressed us with their insurgent attitude, their top to bottom understanding of our business, and their track record of growing challenger brands,” said Denny Marie Post, Red Robin’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer. “They delivered a fresh perspective that will help us climb to the top of this incredibly competitive category.”

With a compliment like that, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. So that’s all for now. For more on Red Robin and their delicious menu, head over to RedRobin.com.

It’s rare that the opportunity arises to redesign the website of a global beer brand, so when Budweiser asked VITRO to rethink their web presence we put on the coffee and told our moms not to worry, because we’d be working late. The final product incorporates the latest content-popping features, including responsive design and parallax scrolling. Big visuals and lots of movement make this site one of our favorite new creations. Click here to check out Budweiser.com first hand.

As for our thinking, we set out to create a Global web property for Budweiser that positions the brand as a patron and catalyst of great times. We wanted to create a dynamic and easy-to-update site/’publishing platform’ that can keep up with the the myriad of activities Budweiser is involved in, and is a part of. We knew we must be action driving (driving engagement with our young customer base, both physically and digitally), allow for quick interactions, maintain a ‘live’ feeling, and provide richness in terms of content, visuals and community. So, Budweiser.com is meant to serve as a quick stop for a ‘great times’ dose, a snapshot of the Bud world and community, a starting point for great experiences, a passion platform for the brand.

In order to achieve the above, we focused on a flexible visual experience that meets the demands of any browser. You’ll find responsive design and parallax scrolling throughout, which help make transitions smoother and, we think, more enjoyable to the eye. Content filtering is also taken up a notch, letting visitors easily find the areas of the site most interesting to them. There’s also a bit of magic happening on the back end, which we designed specifically to meet the brand’s needs. Scalability was vital here because the plan is to roll the site out globally, meaning lots of varied content across markets – which can be a challenge to monitor. One feature we included is a content index, making sure we know what content is enjoyed most, allowing the site administrator to constantly adapt the site content. And if a piece of content is hot in the US and Australian wants to publish on their site, we planned features like content sharing across markets into the back end to meet those needs.

With the Mayan calendar coming to its natural end, many are worried that the end days are near! But our client Toyo Tires doesn’t think so – in fact, they think the world is here to stay for a long, long time. And they’re betting a whole lot of tires they’re right. That’s why we’ve created the Toyo v. The Mayans challenge, an opportunity for you to win big prizes – assuming the world doesn’t end.

Supporting the campaign is a video series starring naysaying end-of-days prepper Donny Doomsday, who from his canned-tuna-filled bunker sends dispatches to the internet about how to prepare for the end. Here’s a taste of Donny’s musings.

Entering this contest means the chance to win big money or a doomsday prepped Jeep. Just head to Toyo’s Facebook page to check it out. But hurry! The world…er, contest…ends soon!

We’re ecstatic to announce that VITRO has been awarded agency of record duties for Redbox Instant by Verizon, a new offering set to debut later this year, from Verizon and Redbox. This new joint venture will expand on the existing Redbox service by delivering the movies people want to watch digitally, in addition to the existing kiosk service used by millions of Americans.

For anyone who loves to watch the latest titles, RedboxInstant by Verizon represents the best of both the digital and physical entertainment worlds. The streaming service means you’ll be able to enjoy the new and popular entertainment you want, using the media and devices you love.

VITRO’s role is to lead creative strategy as well as all digital, social, experiential and traditional advertising executions. So, we’ve got that going for us. If you want to get updates about the new service, head to RedboxInstant.com to sign-up.

When you’re born and raised in a place you get to know its charms, idiosyncrasies and most importantly, the people. For Alaskans, that means covering a lot of ground – they live in America’s largest state. But no matter where they are, Alaska Communications keeps Alaskans connected. That’s what spurred the creation of “Great Alaska”, the newest spot from VITRO and Alaska Communications, with the help of tilt-shift phenom Sam O’Hare.

Shot across Alaska in Anchorage, Girdwood, Juneau, Kenai and Homer, this new spot shares the company’s mission – to keep the great state of Alaska connected, in effect making it smaller for families, friends, businesses and the like. VITRO helped deliver on that message with this visually appealing ad – made possible by O’Hare and his incredible use of still and motion photography.

In fact, more than 70,000 still images were captured, and a Cineflex camera was employed – as were various tools for getting the crew high enough off the ground to get just the right shots.

Work like this isn’t really work, it’s an opportunity to use art to tell a story and deliver a message. It’s the best kind of advertising because it opens the brand up to do more. In Alaska Communications’ case, they’ve been doing more since they opened for business, and “Great Alaska” is the latest reminder of their commitment. We’re equally committed to them, and couldn’t be happier with this spot.

If you’d like to see earlier work we’ve done for Alaska Communications, click here and here and here!

Oh Say hello to Colors that Run, a collaborative retail experience designed by VITRO, ASICS and Foot Locker, with a special kick-off from renown graphic artist Pinky Taylor.

It started like this. ASICS 2012 Fall line of shoes is all about color. A reckless explosion of vibrant hues. So, ASICS, VITRO and Foot Locker designed Colors That Run — an innovative retail execution which creates the illusion of paint pouring into the shoes from ASICS branded paint cans, oozing out of the shoes onto display tables, or cascading from one shoe to another in a rainbow waterfall of color.

But we didn’t stop there. ASICS and Foot Locker went so color-crazy, they invited renown graffiti artist Pinky Taylor to travel the county, stopping at Foot Lockers to create real-time art on top of the Colors That Run installations in New York, Chicago, San Diego and Miami. Check out the video above for a taste of his NYC performance at the Foot Locker on 34th Street.

VITRO designed this color-focused retail display program with street-level stopping power, as well as the power to draw customers into Foot Locker stores. Each display piece is fabricated from a custom mold, and is constructed of poly urethane foam. To achieve a realistic depiction of the swirling colors, every one of the 500 plus pieces is painted by hand. You can see elements of Colors that Run at over 500 Foot Locker and Lady Foot Locker locations across the US from now through late June.

(Updated – we won a silver!) Entering the Cannes Lions International Advertising festival is no small feat – it means you really, really believe your work is the best. This year we are proud to announce that our ASICS project called Run with Ryan has been short listed. WOO HOO! It’s been a good year for this campaign, which has taken home a number of awards, including a Bronze Pencil at the One Show, Best in Show at the MediaPost Digital Out of Home Awards, a Gold Obie for Best Use of Video and a Digital Screen Media Association Best Digital Out of Home Campaign Deployment Award.

Needless to say, we’re incredibly proud of this work! Being shortlisted is an honor in and of itself, but please send some good vibes that we take home a lion. Run Ryan, run!

Today we’re proud to have won FWA’s Site of the Day for our latest ALDO project, called Shoe Paradise. It’s an immense honor to have FWA’s respect, and we are all pumped up about it. If you didn’t know, the purpose of this campaign was to make browsing for shoes more fun. To do it, we turned the spring/summer collection of ALDO shoes and turned them into an interactive video game. Collecting each pair of shoes isn’t easy, and that’s on purpose – ALDO is giving away prizes to winners! So check out AldoShoeParadise.com now for your chance to win.

ASICS’ latest running shoe is one of the lightest and fastest they’ve ever made and to demonstrate how powerful the new GEL-Lyte33’s technology is, we dropped America’s fastest marathoner, Ryan Hall, in the desert and told him to burn his blazing marathon pace over a series of pressure-sensitive pads connected to arrow launchers. A hundred yards away, a truck races parallel to Ryan, creating a moving canvas for the arrows to hit – but you’ll have to watch to see if Ryan hits his target.

GEL-Lyte33 is the latest in a long line of high performance, high tech products from ASICS that aim to reduce weight without sacrificing support and technology. Following up on two previous spots for ASICS’ 33 Collection, “GEL-Blur 33” and “GEL-Neo33” as well as the highly acclaimed Stop at Never website, this spot takes ASICS’ love of experimentation and spirit of ingenuity to a new level. Demonstrating that speed and precision are at the core of this product, ASICS reinforces its longstanding commitment to producing the highest quality, most technologically advanced running shoes on the market.