Monday, July 21, 2008

Dog Days of Summer

By Lindsey Kirby
Fink’s Jewelers Marketing Director, Roanoke, VA


Ahhh, the lazy days of summer… I wish!

Somewhere in-between the spring flowers and holiday sparkles lie the dog days of summer. While most people lounge by the pool or take relaxing beach vacations, we here in the Fink’s Jewelers marketing department work through our busiest time of year! Now is the time Susan, Hollie and I prepare for the much anticipated Holiday selling season. It all begins with our annual Holiday catalog.


The process starts with hand-selecting the beautiful pieces of jewelry for every page. Our buyers have just returned from the industry’s largest jewelry show held in Las Vegas armed with orders for fall’s hottest fashions. Each buyer, along with Mr. Fink, selects the best-of-the-best to feature in our catalog. Then, the fun begins! Susan, our Art Director, begins the creative process of hand-drawing the entire book – page by page. Those drawings are then sent to our photographer in New York where he will position the jewelry for every shot as Susan envisioned.

At the same time, each of us in the marketing department sifts through hundreds of model shots to pick the beautiful face that will represent Fink’s Jewelers for the coming year. Once we’ve found the perfect girl, we begin scouting locations for our model photo shoot. From fancy New York studios to a swanky Nashville hotel, each year we end up somewhere new. For two days, Susan and I dress our model in fancy clothes and beautiful jewelry and take more pictures than you could ever imagine. While the photographer is making sure our model looks perfect in every shot, Susan and I are focused on the true star of the shoot – the jewelry!


Then, the real work begins. We narrow down hundreds of model photographs to the perfect few that showcase the jewelry perfectly. At the same time, color-correcting the jewelry on every product page in order to show the true sparkle and life of each piece. After the pages are selected and the final digital files are complete…it hits the press. A few weeks later, more than 200,000 Fink’s Jewelers catalogs arrive in homes all over the country. Women swoon, men chose the perfect holiday gifts and we ladies in the marketing department let out a huge sigh of relief.

As we all know, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” And, our annual Holiday catalog has a beautiful story to tell!
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Lindsey is at the helm of Marc Advertising, Fink’s Jewelers in-house advertising agency. She has been with Fink’s for over six years, first as the Marketing Coordinator then as Marketing Director. She is a Roanoke native and Virginia Tech alum.